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This story was submitted to the People's war website by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Essex Action Desk on behalf of Barbara Harris and she has given her permission and fully understands the sites terms and conditions

I was two years old when the war started. I lived in a flat with my mum and dad in the Dock area of the East End — convenient for my dad as he cycled to work in the Docks.

In the first year of the war the flat was bombed during the day when mum and I had been visiting my Nan. The Dock area was a prime target. We were re-housed and in 1940 dad got his call-up papers for the Army. By this time a lot of people, mostly children were evacuated all over the country for somewhere safer.

My Nan had a sister who lived in Boughton a small village in Kent between Faversham and Canterbury. It was a small village with one main street, two churches, three pubs and a few shops. There was also a school, just four classrooms - two infant and two junior classes. The only heating in the Winter was a boiler type fire with a wire surround, handy for drying off wet clothes.

I was only three when we moved so I had no idea what a lifestyle change it was for my mum who was leaving town life for the country to live among strangers.

We went from a flat to a two up two down cottage with a toilet at the far end of the garden. The kitchen was small with one cold water tap and a stone copper. A fire was lit underneath for heating the water for the washing and filling the tin bath for the weekly dip in front of the fire. The bath hung on the wall in the garden, also in the garden was the mangle — used to get most of the water out of the washing. No spin dryers then !

The cottage had gas lighting and a range fire. Upstairs were two small bedrooms leading up from behind a door in the corner of the lounge. We had a big garden in which we grew vegetables. The man next door showed mum everything she needed to know about gardening and she was a great success at it and we were kept supplied all year round.

At 5 I started at the village school and was very happy there. There was no television and we listened to the wireless. This worked on an accumulator which had to be taken to the shop for the acid inside to be changed. The accumulator was carried by the handles. One day I was holding it too close to my dress and ended up with a row of holes down the skirt.

To get extra money women helped out in the fields and orchards to pick vegetables and fruit. It was peas, potatoes and strawberries in the fields and apples, cherries and plums in the orchard. After school the children played in the orchard until it was time to go home.

In September the hops were ready for picking. People came down from London among them a lot of my relations. As a child I desperately wanted to live in a hut like all my relations instead of going back to the cottage. I did get my wish when we went back to London after the war.

I was one of the lucky evacuees. My early childhood was safe and idyllic. It has left me so many happy memories.

When dad came out of the Army we had nowhere to live so we lived with my Nan until we were allocated a house. We moved back to London in 1947 when I was ten, so we had been in Kent for seven years.

In the past few years I have visited Faversham and Canterbury, how different to go back and see things through adult eyes. Canterbury was so different. More modern only the Cathedral and the river in the High Street I could remember. With Faversham I was so impressed with its history that meant nothing to me as a child.

A few months ago I took another trip down memory lane to the Hop Fields in Kent. What a wonderful day so many memories. I must have driven everybody mad on the day, as I was back as an evacuee. How lucky for me to have good memories, other people may want to forget theirs. Not me !!

Barbara Harris

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