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The Evacuee
By Ernie Moore

(This story is reprinted with the kind permission of Waterside voices, Londonderry)

It all began for me in April 1941 — I was ten years old. Belfast had been bombed a few times and the sirens had been sounding in Derry for days, possibly weeks.
Then one night two mines were dropped on Derry, one landed somewhere along the Foyle the other in Messines Park, killing thirteen people. As far as I can remember three or four families were wiped out that night and all the surrounding houses were completely wrecked. So shortly after that my sister Lilian and I were sent to stay with friends of my mother in Moville, Co Donegal.

It was actually the house were we spent our summer holidays so I was really looking forward to it. As most people know Moville is a small fishing town and seaside combined, and it was a fisherman’s house we were staying in. The father and son both fished for a living as did most of the locals at that time. The old man’s hands were both badly frostbitten as he’d been at sea all his life. His fingers were bent like a figure of seven, all eight of them. And it never ceased to amaze me as I watched him cut his tobacco, roll it in his hands and then fill his pipe. He was also an expert at making and mending nets and he always gave me sixpence for threading the needles with twine for him — although I’d have happily done it for nothing just to watch him and listen to his yarns about the ships and all the places he had been to.

I don’t think there was a lot of fishing going on at that time because of the war. Most of the locals made their money from ‘bum boating’ a word commonly used at that time. All the big oil tankers for refuelling destroyers, frigates and submarines were anchored off Moville, on the British side of Lough Foyle — most of them seemed to be manned by Chinese but there were all nationalities onboard. The destroyers, frigates and subs would come in alongside the tankers, refuel and straight out again as they were fighting the war in the Atlantic.

Because of the customs and excise the locals would row out after dark with cases of eggs, chickens and fresh butter to sell to the sailors on the ships that were refuelling. If they didn’t pay with money, they paid with cigarettes, which could be sold later on.

I had a week or two of holiday and then I had to go to school. I went to the local primary school called Ballynally primary. It wasn’t so bad as I knew most of the lads, having spent most of my summers in Moville. But luckily or unluckily for me all the subjects were taught in Irish, so I was completely lost. I remember the head teacher Colm Doherty saying I could do my subjects in English, at least for the time being. I sat at a small desk on my own at the side of the class doing my geography and Maths reading it all in English, while the others chanted away in Irish. I had mixed feelings about sitting on my own — sometimes I felt important having my own desk and all that, then at other times i felt lonely.

But after school was good, as we fished in the river and down at the wooden wharf beside the pier. We also played football on the green or Bayfield where all the summer cup games were played. I especially like the summer time, as we nearly always ran around barefooted, hardly anyone wore shoes, so summers must have been good. Nearly every evening we’d dip in the sea down at the old bath house.

I remember on one occasion we brought a load of turf down from the hill for the winter fires which we unloaded and threw down into the cellar through an opening in the street, which was normally covered with a grill or grate.
One night we were wakened up during the night, the house was full of smoke and the cellar ablaze. I remember standing on the front street at about 3 or 4am in my pyjamas and Lilian in her nightdress, a large Panama hat on her head. We didn’t have time to get any of our clothes or belongings, but Lilian did not intend to leave her panama behind.The fore brigade soon had the fire out — thankfully it was confined to the cellar. We dis covered someone had dropped a cigarette accidentally down the grate — it was the talk of the twon for days.

As you know, it was wartime, so it was not uncommon for the bodies of dead sailors to be washed ashore on the beaches. Someone heard that a body had been found on the shore and placed in a small hut at the stone pier about a mile from the town, before being taken up to Derry for burial. Well, the three of us decided to go out that evening and see for ourselves. It was getting dark when we arrived at the hut— the door was not locked, so we pushed it open. One of the lads had a box of matches, so he lit a match, and sure enough there was something in the corner covered with a large tarpaulin or sail. After 3 or 4 matches had been struck we dared one another to go over and lift the tarpaulin. Just as another match went out someone said the tarpaulin had moved- talk about panic, the three of us jammed in the door trying to get out, roaring and shouting — no one wanted to be last. We never stopped running until we reached the town a good mile away. Who said roger Bannister was the first to break the four minute mile — i reckon it was broken by three ten year olds that summer night in 1941.

I stayed about ten months or a year and I believe i hated coming back to Derry. They were really happy times for me, with lots of good memories. That was over 60 years ago and I still go to Moville once or twice a week. Instead of running around the boats at the pier, i now walk around them, see old pals and school friends and have a yarn or two.

There is an old saying ‘ Where the heart lies, the feet wanders’ and in my case this is certainly true.

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