- Contributed byÌý
- medwaylibraries
- People in story:Ìý
- Mrs Emma Ivy Bailey (nee Gilder;) George Bailey (husband;) Agnes Elizabeth Gilder (mother;) Michael, Judy and Vicky Bailey (children.)
- Location of story:Ìý
- Beltring, Sandwich and Gillingham, Kent
- Background to story:Ìý
- Civilian
- Article ID:Ìý
- A8569614
- Contributed on:Ìý
- 16 January 2006
Emma and George Bailey at the Strand, Gillingham Kent - C. 1936
Evacuation to Beltring, Kent
From July 18th, 1940 I was left alone in Gillingham, (Kent,) with my 14 month old son Michael, and I was also pregnant with my daughter Judy.
My mother thought that I should go away for safety, so I was evacuated to Beltring, in Kent. The couple I stayed with there were about fifty years old and the lady was wheel chair bound.
While I was there, the man tried to get into my bed, so I gad to put a chair under the door handle in order to stop him. I could not worry about this, so I wrote to my eldest sister. She came as soon as possible and had me shifted to another place.
Move to Sandwich near Dover
You would never believe it but this time I was sent to Sandwich near Dover. I found out years later that my husband, George, had been based there. The Battle of Britain was going on, and we could hear heavy Ack Ack guns from the Royal Artillery there.
The house where I stayed was a two up, two down, with a toilet bucket at the bottom of the garden. There was no water on tap — it came from a well in the garden. I was sick, pregnant and very lonely.
Home in the Anderson Shelter
My mother thought that I would be better off in our own house, so that I would be
near my own people. So — I came back home to Leslie Road, Gillingham — and the Anderson Shelter down the garden!
My husband George had dug the shelter in the garden when he was called up. The Railway gave wooden bricks for the floor, which I slept on, and rails to make bunks for my two babies using hop sacks. The new baby, Judy, was carried to the shelter in drawer during the Air Raids.
My husband and I kept in touch by writing to each other every evening.
The end of the war.
I had another daughter, Vicky, in 1944 — a year before the war ended. (She was a ‘leave’ baby.) I was far too busy to go to a street party. We had very little money and paid 2/6d (half a crown,) a week for the furniture. We never made any claim for help.
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