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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Terry Cleaver of ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Kent and has been added to the website on behalf of Mr Roysden Dennis Tilley with his permission. He fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

My sister Mavis and I were evacuated to Wales from 1939 to 1944. We came home a year early because we were missing our families badly. We had not been home more than a few days before a land mine fell in Perry Street, Chatham in Kent and destroyed a whole area of our town.
After a lot of clearing up, our families battled on, but Perry St. itself was totally destroyed. I stayed in contact with Mrs Williams for the duration of the war but then she died and Wales but a sad memory. I never had chance to return, but I made a lot of friends in Wales because I used to sing a lot of songs which of course the Welsh people loved — including the famous ‘Woodpeckers Song’. I sadly missed Wales but my memories were great as I spent some of my happier days there, but the irony was I came back in the face of life, which my mother had liked to protect me from.
Of my time in Wales, I can say I never met such wonderful people. My sister and I never lived together as she was sent to Ponterdowne but the times were wonderful and coming home was not altogether a blessing. These are my memories of the war and I still love and bless the Welsh people who did so much for us during the war.
R. Tilley, Gillingham, Kent.

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