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This is Mrs M Farrell's story; it has been added by Herts Libraries, with permission from the author, who understands the terms and conditions of adding her story to the website.

Evacuation Story

In 1939 I was six years old and knew very little about how the war would affect me. I had two brothers younger than myself and my mother was seven months pregnant when the declaration of the war was announced. Far more important to us was the preparation for the arrival of the new baby.

At the beginning of the war there was very little impact on my life, which went on as normal. We had to take gas masks to school but otherwise life continued as usual. Gradually, however, one after another, my small friends would come and say that their Dad had been 'called up' and had to go away. My Father did not get called up and it was only much alter that I found out this was because he was a printer for HMSO where all the official government papers and documents were printed, and the skilled men who worked there had to stay and continue their essential job. We lived in Harrow, Middlesex.

When the Blitz began life began to change. We were given a shelter, which was like a huge table, which almost filled the dining room in our small house. It was made of metal and underneath we arranged some blankets and mattresses and slept there every night.

We lived in Harrow at the time and I had an Aunt who lived in Croxley Green, Hertfordshire. It was considered dangerous in Harrow but Croxley Green was out in the country in those days and hardly ever had any bombs so we went to stay with my Aunt. I suppose this was the first evacuation for us but because we were all together we didn't suffer the hardship of some of the evacuees.

When the Blitz eased up we went home again and life continued much as before, except that rations were much less and food was very short. My mother was a great tea drinker, with three spoons of sugar in each cup, so rationing was very hard for her, even though she used all the coupons for the whole family!

So life went on despite all the difficulties. In 1941 another baby arrived in our household and in 1943 another little boy, which completed our family.

Shortly after this a new weapon appeared in the sky, the 'Doodle Bug', and it was terrifying. First there was the air raid siren (and even to this day the sound of this on radio or television will send shudders up my spine), then would come the sound of German planes overhead. Then the sound as they dropped the 'Doodle Bugs', a strange whistling noise. When this noise stopped you knew the bomb was very near and would begin to fall. At this moment we all took cover. I can remember one occasion when we were in bed, the siren had gone off and before we could get down to the shelter, my mother had pushed us all into the wardrobe! We waited, then heard a terrific noise, the bomb had fallen just four doors away from us, the house and occupants were all destroyed. By now I was ten years old and had a much greater understanding of the war. it was after this incident that my mother decided it was time to take us all to a safer place.

Through the evacuation scheme we were sent to Wales. We went by train from London and for us children it was a great adventure, but I never knew how my mother felt about it. She was born and raised in Central London and only moved to Harrow (which she considered to be the countryside) when she married my father.

We arrived in Wales (later we discovered we were in Anglesey) and the WVS took us to a school hall that had been set up with beds and a canteen while we waited for our billets. There must have been about 100 people there, both families and lots of children by themselves or with brothers and sisters. Because we were a fairly large family and my mother refused to separate us, it took a while to find accommodation. I suppose we were there for about ten days. The WVS were very kind and we lived in the school hall while we waited. We played games like ludo, dominoes and cards. There was nowhere to run around and we didn't go to school.

Then they found some accommodation for us in a seaside village called Benllech. We were to live in an empty 20 bedroom hotel. There were no inside toilets and all the rooms were empty, except for a family of evacuees from Liverpool. The kitchen was huge and the cooking was one on a big coal fired range. The garden was a wilderness but, joy of joys, led down to the sea with a wonderful empty white sandy beach.

When we arrived the WVS left us with a few essentials, but then came the problems. My mother went to the shop to buy some food to discover that as we weren't registered with them they could not accept our ration books and we could not buy any food at all. The WVS tried to help, without success, and this went on for six weeks. We survived on what the WVS bought us — dried milk from America, national orange juice and a few vegetables — and the bread, which we were allowed to buy, and sometimes a local resident would send over a cake or pot of soup. The Liverpool evacuees also shared some of their rations with us. On one memorable occasion, a man arrived at the door carrying what appeared to be two rabbits (we later found out they were hares), complete with head, skin and dripping with blood. My poor mother had no idea what to do with them but we were so hungry that my brother and I, with instructions from the lady from Liverpool, skinned, beheaded, cleaned and cooked them into a stew. What a feast!

The day our ration cards arrived I will never forget. We all went to the shot and my mother laid out the ration cards for all seven of us and said "I'll take it all!" the poor man did not know what had hit him as he tried to calculate seven ration books for six weeks' tea, sugar, butter, flour, eggs, sweets and much more. Finally he came to the jam and asked with astonishment "Do you want it ALL?" to which my mother replied yes. The jam was on the top shelf and he went up and down seven times to get 14lb of jam! When we got home we ate and ate until we could not put a single thing more in our moths. Never had anything tasted so good!

When we arrived in Benllech enquiries were made about our schooling. We came from Middlesex but because we were living in Wales the Welsh authority had an obligation to educate us but the only school available was Welsh speaking, so they would not take us. Never mind, there was a small school run by the Liverpool authority for its evacuees but we could not go there because the Middlesex authority said the Welsh authority had to pay them and the Welsh authority said it was the responsibility of Middlesex to pay! We were in Wales for about a year and never went to school during the whole of our stay.

1944 was a brilliant summer and the six of us had a wonderful time roaming the woods and fields, exploring the beach, swimming and playing to our hearts content. If it rained we had 20 bedrooms to play hide and seek in and we made up plays, sang songs and listened to the radio. Strangely, my education did not suffer unduly but this was partly due to the WVS who set up a travelling library and brought us books each week.

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