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My Family lived on the Downham estate, near Bromley, directly under the flight path from Germany to London. My parents, therefore, thought we three children should be evacuated. My eldest brother, John, had just passed his scholarship to Haberdahers’ Askes Hatcham Boys School, which went to Oxted in Surrey, where they shared the local school on a half day basis.
Alec and I went oFolkestone for several months, but as it was so clost o France we had to come home. When the blitz started our Junior school, called Downderry, was packed on to a train, no one knew its destination.
We were sent to Somerset, perhaps on the same train as Michael Aspel, as he went to Chard, quite close to our tiny village of Shepton Beauchamp.
I was five years old and Alec was seven. We were all shepherded into the village hall and given some milk. The squire’s lady took four children at a time around the village, dropping them off at the houses they had been allocated to. I don’t think the locals had any choice in the matter. It was probably according to the space they had. Fortunately my brother and I were droped off together at Mr & Mrs Drayton’s. She had on daughter, Iris.
The first thing that struck me as I entered the house was a very string smell of leather. Glove making was a thriving cottage industry in the village and nearly every household had bundles of gloves on the stairs, just inside the front door, waiting for collection. I was later told they were for the inners of dispatch riders gloves. The leather was very fine and soft. I was allowed to play with the off-cuts and that lovely smell still rekindles memories.
All the evacuees were taught in the village hall, I certainly admire those two teachers, Miss Gaywood and Mrs Swan. They had the complete infant/junior range in that one room. We were not allowed to be educated at the village school, the only time we entered those hallowed portals was to have our inoculation in front of the village children, and shame on anyone who shed a tear!
The main event of the year was walking to the next village, South Petherton, for the annual fair. In Shepton Beacuhamp there was a tradition, on Easter Sunday, called Egg Shackling. Each child in the village took an egg, marked with their name, to the venue. The eggs were placed in a large garden sieve and gently shaken round and round. As the eggs broke they were removed and the last one in the sieve was the winner.
On Sunday mornings the whole village attended church. Each housewife would prepare the Sunday lunch and carry it to the village bakery, where the baker would cook all the roasts in the huge oven, timed to be ready when everyone came out of church. It was a strange sight, seeing everyone scurrying home with hot roasting tins.
On Sunday afternoons every child attended Sunday school, and woe betide anyone who forgot to wear a hat! Boys or girls. I was only five, but the vicar sent me home, all alone, to fetch my panama. I had to pass the village pond, where the geese stuck their necks out and chased me. I still hate geese.
Sunday evenings would se everyone in church for evensong. After the service they would all make their way to the village pub. It was a wonderful social gathering for the adults. The children would play outside, being very careful not to dirty their ‘Sunday best’.
We returned home to Downham in 1943 as the bombing had eased. There was one very terrifying day when German planes roared over at rooftop height, machine gunning schoolchildren, just at the time they were let out of school to go home for lunch.
The previous day one of our planes had been hit over Germany and had jettisoned its bombs, one of which landed on a school. The Germans had returned to take their revenge. Many children were killed. The noise was deafening. I was running home screaming when an unknown lady grabbed me and pulled me into her shelter.
Alec’s class had been naughty, so the teacher kept them in for ten minutes. He was safe. Of course my mother was frantic because neither of us had arrived home in all the mayhem.
In June 1944 the doodlebugs started, so Downderry was packed off again, this time to Leeds. A lady took Alec and me. We were missing for three days because the lady had not signed for us (we found out many years later that she was a prostitute). She had no idea of how to care for children. We were then moved to the Holbeck area of Leeds. There was a mint factory at the end of the street. We finally went home in 1945.
That time from five years of age to ten is so important in a child’s development. We often wonder what sort of people we would be if we had not been taken away from our parents.

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