大象传媒

Evacuated from Liverpool

An evacuee from Liverpool
鈥淥h, yes, we had labels and I had to be with my brother, you see, that was specified. They wanted the boys in the country because they could work. The first place we were sent to (as evacuees) was Northwich, Cheshire and in those days everything was under the carpet and we didn鈥檛 know about homosexuals then. He was a homosexual and he had a secretary. They had a beautiful home, a summer- house. I was treated wonderfully. He used to make my brother walk to school and I was taken in the car. Stan was eleven or twelve years old at the time. One night my brother came home late and he beat him. My brother went and had a word and we were moved.

We were then put on a farm, my brother was treated wonderful and they didn鈥檛 want me there really, I was useless. Stan could help with the cattle. The lady used to meet me from school and in those days there were no sweets and she used to break off little bits of macaroni, raw macaroni for me to eat. I can remember her breaking these bits off as she walked me home and then I was given my meal and I had to be in bed by 6 o鈥檆lock! My brother kept in touch with them, he used to go and camp there until he was about 18. The next place we went to was in Wales. They were Welsh speaking so we went way behind in our lessons as they taught in Welsh. The kids all spoke in Welsh, I used to speak in Welsh, I can鈥檛 remember it now, little bits come back if people talk. But it did hold us back. Our school had been bombed and when we came back to Liverpool our first teaching was held in a house and we all would sit around a table. We were taught by a proper teacher - she was teaching ten to twelve children, we had proper school books. She took half in the morning and half in the afternoon. That was quite nice really.

We went back home. I think my mother decided that we would take our chance. We had six months under the stairs! I don鈥檛 remember whether our school was bombed during the day or night, it must have been night time. We had several schools bombed. We lived reasonably near to the docks so we did get it. At the bottom of the street there was a land mine. Our canary went - I remember that day! A piece of shrapnel came in through the window and killed the canary!鈥�

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