大象传媒

I'm a pupil from Heaton Manor Comprehensive School, Newcastle upon Tyne, entering Ronald Andrew Cooper's story onto the website, and they fully understand the website terms and conditions of use.
In 1940 I was evacuated to Ambleside in the Lake District. I was 7 years of age and sent on my own by train after being marched to Jesmond station with my school, which was Sandyford Road Primary School. I had a label round my neck, a gas mask, and a brown paper carrier bag containing a tin of condensed milk, fruit and a Kit Kat biscuit, which went missing on arriving at Ambleside. We all Assembled in a hall. Every child was assigned to residents of Ambleside in the Lake District singularly, with brothers or sisters, or with large families split up. I was the last to leave on my own, and remember bumping my head on the Hillman car, which was taking me to my assigned people. On arriving at their house there was no answer, so the man who was taking me said he would take me to his house where I was given a room. I stayed there and lived and played with his family. I didn鈥檛 attend school while I was there.

After a few months my mother and younger three year old brother, who had been evacuated after me to a very large house by the lakeside owned by a rich boat-builder, traced me to my address in Ambleside. They drove to find me in a chauffeur driven car, which was a Rolls Royce, and took me to join them at their house.

After a few more months had passed my father wanted us to come back to Newcastle to be with him. In Newcastle I attended half-day school, mornings one week and afternoons the next week. The air raids were frequent and we sheltered under the stairs of our house. But as the air raids got worse we went to Victoria Tunnel shelter in Shieldfield Park. While there, a mother ran out to get her forgotten ration books and was killed by a shell. Later on we got a table shelter in our house. In 1942 the Manors Goods Station and the next street to my house called Camden Street was bombed killing my friend and his mother. Our house had the roof blown off while we were at a neighbour鈥檚 shelter and when we returned there was a large paving stone on the pillows where my brother and I slept. We then had to take shelter at the Gosforth Public House on Gosforth Street and Shieldfield overnight as our house had bomb damage and there was an unexploded bomb in the next street. The Goods Station had been full of food when it was bombed, it burnt for a week or more and afterwards everyone in the vicinity was plagued with flies. Then we went to live in Morpeth, Northumberland, with relatives until our home in Napier Street was repaired. The war continued until I was thirteen years old.

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