大象传媒

All through the years of 1938 / 1939, there were rumours of war in Europe. Of course, nobody took it seriously even though we had all been issued with gas masks, in case the Germans used poison gas. "There will be no war" was the general opinion and "if there is, it will be the end of civilisation".

The trouble was, with Adolf Hitler, his troops had moved into Czechoslovakia and were advancing towards POland, whom we had made a contract with that we would come to their aid.

Some time before, our Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, visited Germany to negotiate with Hitler about withdrawing his troops from Poland and he returned home brandishing a piece of paper and saying: "The world is a safer place" and "peace in our time", so surely that was enough!

We, my parents and I, were living in Watson House in Halsall at the time, having only been there since February 1939. We had moved from Lydiate House where I was born leaving my sister, her new husband and yuong son and stepdaughter as new tenants. That summer, I had a holiday at Whitby with my cousin Bessie and her friend Irene. My father met us off the coach and my father echoed what everyone was saying ... there will be no war.

There was a wedding invitation waiting for me when I got home. It was from a school friend and it was at Walton Church in Liverpool. Of course, I went to it and we all had to take our gas masks.

On 1 September 1939, the evacuation of children from the big cities began. A crowd came to Halsall and congregated in the schoolroom. Each child clutching a bag with a few possessions and a tin of corned beef issued to them by the authorities.

Fifty years on, people still talk about how dreadful it was to pick children to go and live with them ... but I did just that.

Apparently we were down to take two and the landlord of the Saracens Head - the local pub - who seemed to be in charge - said: "Come on Ida, pick two".

I chose two little girls aged four and five and took them home with me.

They were bewildered. I don't think they had ever seen a big house before, much less been in one, and they thought the wash house was the house next door and they wanted a chip shop. I made them as happy and as comfortable as I could and they were very good.

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