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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Chloe French from Crawley Library and has been added to the website on behalf of Lilla Fox with her permission and she fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

In September 1939 I was a teacher working in Dagenham, Essex. One morning we were finally given permission to evacuate the children from my school. At 4am, in the dark, we gathered all the children and their younger brothers and sisters at the school and then lead them to Dagenham docks. At the docks we found two paddle-steamers waiting for us — we had no idea they would be there and we had no idea where we were going. My school was girls only, but on the boat we had the boys school as well. The boat was absolutely packed - it was a wonder no-one went overboard. As it got light it turned in to a beautiful, bright September day. Everyone was so well behaved considering we had no idea where we were going.

Eventually we stopped at Great Yarmouth. While we were on the boat war had been declared. In Great Yarmouth we were taken to a school where I was put in a metalwork room with my pupils and their siblings. In the night we were woken by an air-raid siren and we were instructed to take all the children outside, but nothing happened. Next day there was a huge muddle as they tried to sort out where all the children would go. My headmistress was a fierce lady, but for once this worked in our favour as she was able to accommodate all the children from our school in the same village. Other schools had their children spread over lots of villages.

For all the children from my school it was their first experience of the countryside — thatched houses and stone cottages and lots of sunflowers. It was a huge culture shock for the children, but most of them behaved very well. We shared the local school — they would teach their children in the morning and we would teach ours in the afternoon.

At first us teachers were living in an upper class hotel right on the edge of a cliff. There were still paying guests in the hotel so we had to use the back stairs and eat our meals separately. After a while a few of us moved out into a bungalow with some people who had not taken in any evacuated children.

Most of the time we enjoyed being there. The young children were fascinated by the all the animals in the country — especially the pigs. But after a while children drifted back to Dagenham as it seemed safe for them to be there. So eventually we were sent back too. We weren’t allowed to teach at the school as there was no shelter there. Instead we set work and the children came in to collect it and do it at home. Finally when a shelter was built at the school the children could come back to lessons.

After a while it was decided it was too dangerous for the children to be in Dagenham, so once again we were evacuated. The evacuation was much better organised this time and the children were sent to a village in the Cotswolds. I joined them a couple of days later because I had fallen off my bike in Dagenham when I was cycling during the blackout! Again we shared a school with the local children and again, after a little while, the children drifted back home. So again we were sent back, but this time things were very different when we arrived back home. The Blitz had started and most of the male teachers had been sent to war. Things had really changed.

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