大象传媒

- Donaghdee.

Early in 1940 my brother George, sister May and my cousin Kenneth and myself were evacuated from Belfast to The Beagh, at Maghera, Co Londonderry.

We went to a farm and stayed with Mr and Mrs Patterson, who we called Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Willie. We stayed in the 鈥淏ig House鈥�, it had quite a number of rooms and we all had our own room. This was the first time I had my own room, and I thought it was all very exciting! Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Willie were quite strict with us children 鈥� but with so many of us all around eight years old , I expect they had to be.

We attended the local school at the Beagh. It was a lot smaller than my old school in Belfast, this meant that we had a number of classes all together in one room. Mr and Mrs Shire were the teachers at the school at that time. Again, they were pretty strict with us, but very good teachers. We learned spellings, arithmetic, music and art.

We really enjoyed the time on the farm doing all the various farm chores. There were also two other adopted children on the farm. My father was at sea and when he was home, my parents would come to visit us. That was very occasionally, as travel was very expensive then, and the journey difficult. We weren鈥檛 too homesick because we had a lot of fun and were always busy. Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Willie were so good to us, they were just like a mother and father to us. We wanted for nothing, there was always plenty of good food on the table. We stayed there until the end of the war, although my sister stayed on, and my brother George went back to farm there when he was old enough.

We always kept in touch after the war 鈥� but after their deaths we hadn鈥檛 been back to the Big House. Last September, my sister May and myself went back to the farm. We were pleased to see that the farm house had been renovated and was in very good condition. The outside had been kept in the original farm house style and looked the same, although the inside had been modernised and looked very different. We met up with Jackie Sufferin and his wife Rita, Jackie was one of the two adopted children, and their son and his wife are now the present owners of the house. They gave us a tour of the farm and the other farms in the area which we used to frequent as children.

The wartime memories came flooding back, my sister remembered many stories about our time on the farm. We had a lovely tea with them and talked at length about the events of the past. We also took a lot of photos to show our brother George and cousin Kenneth. We hope to return again for another visit.

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