大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny Christian of the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library on behalf of Bridget Patrick and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

During the summer of 1943, I had to take an examination in order to get to the Secondary School where my parents wanted me to finish my school days. It was the Sir John Leman Grammar School and was in the town of Beccles in Suffolk. It is now called the Sir John Leman High School.

I sat with about forty other children in an old school building in Beccles, not far from where I live now, and we had to do an English and a Mathematics examination. The English questions did not seem too difficult, and I enjoyed writing a story, but oh dear, I could not understand much of the Maths at all. I had moved around so much that I had missed most of the number rules that children learn throughout their first school years, and I never seemed to catch up. I was sure that I had failed and would not be able to go to the school I had set my heart on. Where would I go next? Perhaps it would not make a lot of difference. I would know nobody at all and I was finding it very hard to make new friends wherever I went.
A few weeks later when I had almost forgotten about all this a letter arrived from my mum. She had just heard that I had passed the examination for entrance to the Sir John Leman School and I could go back home to live in Lowestoft again. I don't know who was the more excited, my mum or I. It was the school she particularly wanted me to go to and I was just so thrilled that I had actually managed to pass the examination.
My evacuation was over, or so I thought. But in 1943 with the war still on we were not allowed to travel between Lowestoft and Beccles to school, so I had to stay with a family in a village called Mutford which was midway between the two towns, and go home for weekends and holidays. Living with a strange family and starting at a strange school was difficult and again I felt that I belonged nowhere. At this time the first Doodlebugs, were falling on Lowestoft. These were bombs shaped like an aeroplane but with no pilot. They had a jet engine and they fell to earth and exploded when the fuel ran out. When you could hear them droning over you knew you were safe, but when they stopped and there was silence you knew they were about to explode somewhere close.
At this time we had another kind of shelter called a Morrison shelter. This was like a big iron table which you slept under and which I hated. It was supposed to protect you if a bomb fell very close by, but I never thought it would. We were lucky that nothing fell very near to our house and we did enjoy playing table tennis on top of our Morrison shelter.
At last on May 8 1945 peace was declared and families were together again after five and a half long years. I can remember that all schools had two days special holiday and everybody was so relieved and happy.
The recent Millennium celebrations have reminded me of that special day in Lowestoft in May 1945. During the evening we all trooped down the sea front to the South Pier where there was dancing and a wonderful firework display. Can you imagine how we all felt?
Just to know that we were all safe was the main thing, but as we watched those fireworks and realised that all the lights in the town were shining brightly after nearly six years of darkness, we knew that at long last Great Britain was free from war once again.
What a terrible, terrible thing war is and how much so many people suffer. In the 1939 - 1945 war a lot of children evacuated from their homes and loved ones were not treated kindly and grew up to be very unhappy people. I was one of the lucky ones.
All the moving around made things very difficult but I had been looked after by kind people who did their best for me.
All this happened over sixty long years ago and many of the evacuated children are now grandparents. They know that their grandchildren will never have to be parted from their families in the same way as they were.
Perhaps if children learn to understand just a little of that unhappy time so long ago, they will grow up to help to make a happier and more peaceful world where nobody will need to be afraid of war.

Bridget Patrick. November 2004.

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