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R.S.M.(Ronnie)Kilby May 2002
MEMORIES !!

Sunday the 10th of September 1939 —Millfield railway station, Sunderland, Co. Durham.

The second world war was just one week old, and about 400 boys from Sunderland Bede Collegiate Boys School together with their parents were standing on the platform wondering what was to happen next !

We were all equipped with cases containing our clothes and food for the journey, together with brown tags on our coats giving our names and destination — Northallerton — wherever that may be, for certainly none of us had the slightest idea of where it is or what it looked like — but it would not be long before we found out !

We all piled into the train when it arrived, and the big adventure had begun. I expect that none of us was aware of the tears and anguish ot the parents we were leaving behind as the train pulled out of the station to begin the journey south, away from all of the bombs that were expected to be falling on the town, which is the centre of the country’s shipbuilding industry. ( Fortunately, they never materialized in the numbers that were expected.)

As we settled down to our journey it was not long before we got into a more cheerful frame of mind and started chattering and singing — I remember that the tune of the day was ‘South of the border down Mexico way ‘ .

Some time later, how long I do not remember, the train arrived at Northallerton, and we all piled out onto the platform, probably creating havoc for the teachers who were there to look after us, but it must have been a terrible time for the poor souls !

From the station we formed a long crocodile and walked into the town, down a long road, until eventually we arrived at a church hall, where we were ushered inside to await our fate.
The hall, it belonged to the Congregational Church, was naturally crammed with people, as there were not only the 400 of us, but also the local people who were to be our guardians from then on — for how long no-one could even guess at.

Some time later I was put, together with a boy called Stuart Paton, into the charge of a Mrs. Dixon, who took us to her house at 2, Friary Gardens, where she lived with her husband, who later I learned worked in the grocery department of the local food store. (There were no Supermarkets in those days)

Stuart was a first year boy, whilst I was 12 and in my second year, so consequently I had never met him before, but he was a nice lad and we got on very well together.

Mr. and Mrs. Dixon were old ( probably about 50 !), and had no children of their own. They were therefore completely unused to having children in their house, and certainly unused to looking after them. We later learned that most of the people who had evacuees, ( for such had we become ), to look after, had been told that they must have them, and were therefore sometimes not very happy about it. One of the first things that we were told to do was to take off our shoes whenever we came into the house !

A letter to our parents was a priority of course, so that they knew where we were, and this was accomplished without delay. After being fed we listened to the radio —Childrens Hour — and the signature tune of that programme did not exactly cheer us up either.

Stuart and I were both in the same bed and probably shed a few tears before going to sleep, although I cannot say that I remember that.

The next day we all reported to the church hall once more to find out what was to be done about the matter of schooling. There was a Grammar School at Northallerton, but it of course was filled with their own pupils, and certainly could not accommodate the 400 from our school. It was later arranged that the Northallerton pupils would go to the school in the mornings, and that we would go in the afternoons. I have no doubt that they would be highly delighted with this arrangement, as I suppose were we.

One day we were all taken to the local picture house to see the film ‘Dangerous Moonlight’, which was about the invasion of Poland - it must have been made very quickly — and featured Anton Walbrook playing the Warsaw Concerto — still often played today.

In the mornings we had lessons of a sort in the church hall, but mostly I remember going on long walks around the countryside. This system carried on for quite a few weeks, because I remember vividly one morning when the snow was on the ground ( so it must have been sometime in November ) and about a foot thick, and we were walking up a road which had been cleared by the snowplough, when one of our class, Philip Salvin, decided to walk on top of the snow at the side of the road. This put him a foot or so higher that the rest of us, and was fine until a short while later when he gave a shout and all but disappeared from view, having walked over a roadside ditch into which the snow gave way. After that we kept to the road !

We must have been there only about a week or two when one Sunday my mother came down to see how we were being looked after, and to check that everything was as it should be. When she asked how we were being fed and I told her that for our Sunday lunch we had had corned beef sandwiches she was horrified, and shot off to see the billeting officer without further delay. The upshot of that was that we were both moved fairly smartly into another billet.

This time we went to stay with the Misses Brockhill who were relations of some friends of my mother. The house was an old Victorian terraced house at the end of the main street and not far from the parish church. Stuart and I were in a bedroom which was just under the roof, and which was cold and into which water leaked. We also had to be out of the house in the morning to go to school, and were not allowed back until evening. It would be an understatement to say that we went from the frying pan to the fire. I don’t suppose that we were there more than a week before our complaints reached the authorities and we were on the move once more !
Our new foster-parents were Mr. and Mrs. Birch, who lived at 12, Ivy Cottages, Malpas Field, which was a two up and two down terraced cottage, a big change from our previous abodes.

An even bigger change was the way in which we were looked after. Auntie Martha and Uncle George could not have been nicer if they had been our own parents. Uncle George had been a Sergeant in the First World War, but had been gassed and was not in the best of health. However this did not stop him from looking after Stuart and me as if we were his own sons. I remember that he was always telling us of his exploits and of the things that we could do to keep us interested. By this time my bicycle had arrived from home and he took great delight in fixing me up with an acetylene lamp, and also showing me how to make the gas in an old tin — really a most highly dangerous pastime — but after all there was a war on !

Auntie Martha was a really good cook and every Wednesday used to make the bread for the week. After the dough was mixed and kneaded it was put into the bread tins and placed on the hearth in front of the kitchen range for the mixture to rise before being put into the oven at the side of the fire to cook. Another day was nearly always rabbit pie, rabbits being plentiful and not on the ration, as they could be caught in the fields - if you were quick enough. She also had a gramophone ( the sort with the handle on the side ), and one of her favourite records was one of Gracie Field’s — ‘The little pudding basin that belonged to Aunty Flo ‘ — which I still remember to this day.

At the back of the cottage was the local cattle market, which was held each week, and used to prove a fascination for the likes of we townies.

I do not know precisely how long we were with the Birch’s, but think that sometime in late 1940 I was moved to another billet as Uncle George was becoming less well and Auntie Martha less able to cope with us as well as him.

Stuart and I next went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Kingston, who lived along Stokesly Road, and who had a teenage daughter, Connie, who was forever singing ‘I don’t want to set the world on FIYER ‘.This was a fairly new terraced house with gardens back and front, and we were very happy there too. One morning however I woke up scratching like mad, and went to the doctor who said that I had Scabies — Shock Horror — as this was a disease of the great unwashed in the slum areas ( or so we thought ). I was smartly put on a bus to Darlington and sent home to be looked after.

My mother was duly horrified and I was taken as a day patient to the Hospital for Infectious Diseases where I had to undergo the indignity of sulphur baths and having some horrid smelling ointment rubbed on. Needless to say I quickly recovered as was soon back at Northallerton.

I stayed with the Kingston’s until July 1941 I think, but later moved to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Clark, on Romanby Road, who again were somehow connected with friends of my mother. Stuart did not come with me as there was already a boy there from Sunderland Technical College called Gordon Watts. They also had a son Gus., who was a ‘year or two older than Gordon and me. This house backed onto an open field where we used to fly planes and so on. It was also on the opposite side of the road to the Royal Engineers depot, which was a building with a low roof, onto which our football sometimes landed. We then had to climb up to recover it — fortunately without mishap. I stayed here until July 1942, when I too came back to Sunderland, in order to continue in the Lower 6th form.

This incidentally was just before most of the bombing of Sunderland took place!

I remember one night in Northallerton when the sirens sounded and planes were heard overhead. Next day people were horrified to hear that an incendiary bomb had been found in front of the County Hall !!

During the times at Northallerton I was really quite happy with plenty of friends both from Bede and the local Grammar school. By July 1941 most of the Bede pupils had gone back home, until finally there were only 12 of us left. We now had our own classroom, which had started life as the master’s common room for the Grammar school. Our only contact with the pupils of the Grammar school was at morning assembly, when we took our place at the back of the hall. The poor headmaster was always complaining about the way in which we used to dress — they all had their uniforms on, whilst we poor souls came in a variety of colour schemes, but however much he complained there was little that he could do, as we were all ‘ special cases ‘

Winters in those days used to be quite severe and often we could go and skate on a field that would be specially flooded so that it could freeze and provide an enormous skating area.

Model aircraft making was also a great hobby — mainly flying aeroplanes made from balsa and covered with tissue, which was treated to stretch it tight. The power unit was a large length of heavy duty elastic. When they crashed of course it was a major repair job, but fun nevertheless. I also made gliders, which were powerless and launched with a system of pulleys and string.

Bird-nesting was also popular in those days as it was not illegal to collect the eggs, as it is today. We used to go down to the banks of the river Swale, which were very sandy, and where the Sand Martins used to bury into the side of the banks to build their nests and to lay their eggs. You had to put your hand right into the hole to reach the eggs and carefully take one out. Unfortunately wasps also used to build their nests in a similar manner so you had to be very careful.

Northallerton, being situated in the flat area of Yorkshire, was surrounded by airfields, both bomber and fighter, so there were always planes overhead, either going out on bombing missions, or returning from them. Sometimes the returning aircraft would be in a very distressed state, and crashes were not uncommon. When a crash happened in was usual for the local youth to go sightseeing and hunting for souvenirs — usually ammunition or pieces of Perspex from the windows. One day some policemen arrived at the school and left with a large box almost full of ammunition belts which had been taken from one of the wrecks. I visited a crash site one day in winter when the ground was covered in snow and found an unopened parachute that I hid under a hedge to be collected later. Of course it had gone by the time I got back. Another time when I was at the site of a Spitfire which had crashed I found a finger !! I did not go back to any further sites.

Northallerton was the home of the Green Howards Regiment, and I remember during the early days of 1940, seeing the soldiers who had been evacuated from Dunkirk returning to the Headquarters, most of them looking completely shattered. A lot of them also went to the Northallerton hospital, which had now become the base military hospital. It was therefore quite common to see the soldiers from the hospital in the town in their distinctive light blue uniforms.

Holidays were spent at home as the expected air raids did not materialize and it was quite safe to be in Sunderland — or at least as safe as anywhere else !

My father was in the Merchant Navy and his ship — the Glenlea was either running to and fro to America, or else going back and forth to the West African coastal ports - Sierra Leone, Accra, Lagos, etc..

Sometimes my holidays would coincide with his ship being in port in England, and my mother and I would sometimes go and stay on the ship for a night or two. I remember on the occasion of his return from West Africa staying on the ship the decks of which were covered in palm oil which stank to high heaven ! I also remember the cockroaches crawling on the deck head above the bunk that I was in — not very pleasant.

Once, when the ship was lying in the Tyne waiting for the Degaussing apparatus to be fitted we had to go out to the ship in a rowing boat and then climb up a ladder strapped to the side on the ship. Fortunately there were plenty of helping hands. On this particular day it was after an air raid on the Tyne area, and we had to pick our way through a lot of bomb damage. Rowntrees sugar store in Felling had been burnt out the previous night creating quite a blaze.

Other holidays were spent on a farm at Middleton-in-Teesdale which was quite fun as it was a chicken farm and all of the eggs had to be gathered in daily. Also we used to go out in the early morning to gather mushrooms in the field opposite.

My uncles Harry and Clifford were in the forces - the Royal Tank Corps and the Intelligence Corps respectively, and I wrote to them on occasion, as well, of course, as writing to my father.

From September 1941 until July 1942 the 12 remaining Bede boys were studying for our Oxford School Certificates and were being taught by the three teachers who had stayed behind with us — Mr.Berry , Mr.Hildebrand , and Miss Craggs.

The class consisted of Gordon Wright, Eddy Dennis, Myself, Crosby (Chirpy) Humphries, Harold (Bomber) Wardropper, Ken Bagley, Bobby Beston, Jackie Newrick, John Freeman, Alfie Dunn, Peter Porter, and Bill Jackson. (I am not sure of the last two names ).

My particular friend at this time was Harold Wardropper, who lived in glorious isolation in the converted stable office block attached to one of the large houses in Northallerton belonging to two spinster sisters. They had a chauffeur who lived in his own house nearby, and with whom Harold took his meals. Otherwise he had this huge room all to himself. I often used to visit him to do homework or do something or other together. It was he who got me interested in photography, as he had a Box Brownie camera and used to take some really good photographs, which he developed and printed himself.

This friendship continued long after we had returned home, Harold being Best Man at our wedding. Sadly he died some years ago, never having married.

Many horror stories have been told of the lives of evacuees, but I cannot say that I ever heard of any such events during my time as one. What I do know is that there was a choice of my going to Northallerton with the school, or going to our relations in Canada — and that would have been on The City Of Benares, which was sunk in the Atlantic, taking with it one of my friends from my first year at Bede.
In July 1942 I returned home for good, to continue my schooling back at Bede, this time in the Lower sixth form.

R.S.M.(Ronnie)Kilby May 2002

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