大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Christine Butterfield of CSV Media on behalf of Geoff Blyth and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

My war lasted 9 years, from 1st September 1939 when I was evacuated, until 17th March 1948 when I was demobbed from the army. I was home for only 2 years between 16 when starting work and 18 when I was called up.

I was very lucky with my evacuation, I had a good time. I was based in Ashford in Kent. By Christmas 1939 I was in my third billet, where I stayed until May 1940. Then my lower school was merged with another higher level school and we went into a school camp in Ewhurst, Surrey. There were only 31 school camps. I stayed there for 3 years. I came from a lower school and I was no academic. But I鈥檓 very proud to say that in the higher school I became the school captain! It was the best 3 years of my education. We鈥檇 organise our own shows and concerts. We only had one week off in summer when we went off to play sports and then one week in Christmas. Otherwise we were there all the time, 24 hours a day. I thought it was great. It was so good that when I was called up I had no trouble fitting into army and barrack life. The war in Europe was over 10 weeks after I joined up. I carried on for 3 years after the war finished and ended up serving in Germany in the Medical Corps. I then came home and resumed my career in the civil service.

We have our own Evacuation Group from the camp school, with a monthly magazine and trips back to the camp yearly. There are about 60 people in the group, with members in Australia, New Zealand, US and Canada. The camp is now owned by the City of Westminster and this January a new block was built. The old evacuees were invited back for a dinner to occupy it for the first time. The Lady Mayor of Westminster came and officially opened the new block. In 1942, those lads who had artistic ability were gathered together by the art master and they painted two murals each end of the dining room. Those paintings are still there and our group collected funds for them to be restored. The paintings are registered with the Imperial War Museum as official war memorials.

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