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This story has been written onto the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by CSV Storygatherer Coralie, on behalf of Mary Ward. It has been added to the site with her permission and Mary fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

My school was evacuated from Bognor Regis to Penzance in 1940 or 1941. We were housed in the Royal Hotel, which is still there, though it is now apartments, and our classrooms were in a large house down the road called Ponsendane (query spelling), which is now almost hidden by a flyover.

Three of us shared a bedroom with a view over Mount’s Bay. One night we were awakened by a loud explosion and, rushing to the window, saw a small boat on fire and sinking. It had apparently switched off its degaussing equipment to enter Penzance harbour and had been passing over a magnetic mine. At low tide its masts could be seen sticking out of the water. We were unable to get down to the beaches because they were mined and covered with barbed wire, etc. due to fears of invasion.

One dark winter evening, a group of us was walking back to the hotel from our classroom when a lone plane came in from the sea and started machine-gunning the street (they were known as Tip-and-Run Raiders). Some of us were pulled into a row of houses, near the hotel, by the occupants; the street doors opened directly into the front rooms and the lights had been switched off because of the blackout, so we were unable to see our rescuers’ faces, though I remember a large Airedale-type dog taking an interest in me. Friends who were already past the cottages and on an unpaved track alongside the hotel were pushed to the ground by some soldiers who had a small encampment further up the lane. One girl complained bitterly afterwards because she had ruined a precious pair of silk stockings her mother had recently sent her. The plate glass windows on the ground floor of the hotel had been broken by bullets.

At the end of term we travelled on a special train which left Penzance at about 6 a.m. and picked up groups of pupils from schools evacuated to the West Country, arriving in London at about 6 p.m., before the air raids started. We were given packed lunches and were pretty exhausted by the time we arrived. I remember watching the moon set and the sun rise over Mount’s Bay at the same time.

There was an occasion when the choirs of the above schools took part in The Messiah at Truro Cathedral. The soloists were Olive Groves, Frank Titterton and George Baker (I forget the name of the contralto). It was a wonderful experience.

Eventually the sporadic raids on Penzance were considered too hazardous to us and our school re-evacuated and joined a girls’ school in Berkshire. I was between 14 and 15 years old when these events took place.

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