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This story has been submitted by Alison Tebbutt, Derby CSV Action Desk, on behalf of Joyce Wood. The author has given her permission and understands the site's terms and conditions.

Part One of this story can be found at bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/a5701961

Some recollections from two of the evacuees received in Smalley from Chalkwell School in Westcliff (Southend)

Margaret and Kathleen Wright, seven year old twins, stayed with Joyce Johnson and her father at Kyte’s Lane, June 1940 to March 1942.

Some random Recollections

We left a ‘danger zone’ for ‘safety’. There, we sometimes had to sleep under the stairs, and we remember Mr Johnson standing in the garden watching bombs drop on Derby.

The photograph was taken in the garden before we left home at about 8am on Sunday morning, in June, 1940. We had lovely new rucksacks on our backs, and at the school we were given labels…..Group One, Squad One. We were all told it would be a ‘holiday’ or an ‘adventure’.

It was difficult to swallow the food we were given for the journey….somehow we didn’t feel very hungry. When we arrived at Belper station to be loaded on to buses for Smalley, our brother, aged twelve, who had left earlier in the day with his school, was at the barrier. He waved us off, and cycled over to see us a few weeks later.

We remember……

The lady who kindly took us home…Joyce Johnson. We were being overlooked as our parents had said we were not to be separated. Mr Johnson, when we got to the cottage, said ‘I thought we were getting just one. Where will they sleep? ‘They’ll have to have my room’ said Joyce. And we did, for nearly two years.

Mr Johnson walking to the top of the village on Friday evenings to get the accumulators charged for the radio, (sorry, the wireless).

Reading by an oil lamp, and taking a candle to bed. Margaret’s hair got caught in the oil lamp one night. Joyce rushed across the room just in time.

Walking to school in the winter, with snow over our wellies.

The hot coal fire in the school room.

Passing time in the Baptist church in the first few days or weeks. We had our own teachers at that stage, but no equipment. We sang a lot, but only remember ‘Drink to me only with thine eyes.’ I remember wondering what on earth it meant!

Most of the evacuees and teachers left quite soon, and those of us who stayed were transferred to the village school. This was much better. I remember Miss Meades singing ‘when morning gilds the skies’…..and the enormous R that Mrs Allen wrote on the sums we got right.

Playing ‘Housey Housey’ on Friday afternoons, and knitting squares for blankets.

Walking with Mr Johnson to Mapperley Pit, he was carrying a can of cold tea and his sandwiches.

Going to the wedding of one of Joyce’s relations in Harrogate. Mother made us new dresses…green with pink rosebuds on.

Visiting Joyce’s mother’s grave in Smalley. We visited in the seventies, and found it straight away.

Playing on the roly-poly hill….. and riding on the hay cart……… Adkins Farm, and the big dogs at the Hall…….. the copper being prepared on Sunday evening for wash day…. lunch in the garden on wash day when it was fine……..picking gooseberries and ‘pinching’ a few…bathing in front of the fire…..and going out to the loo.

Church on Sundays and a choir boy pumping the organ…..and the yew tree.

Yeomans Farm and the geese.

The pretty garden at Kytes Lane…the pig sty……..the bay tree……..and the cats. One cat (Judy?) bringing home her litter.

Our parents visiting……..and going to Derby for studio photographs.

Perhaps these recollections are not all trustworthy after fifty years, but it is astonishing how much detail is recalled…and certainly Joyce would confirm many of them….she also has her own, both good and bad, no doubt.

One wonders how easily seven year olds today would accept this transplanting…even in the best circumstances. It certainly added to the experience of a generation of children and a generation of kindly ‘host’ families. All experiences were not as satisfactory as those for the Wrights and Smalley.

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