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The Pain of Separation

I was born in 1934 and aged 8 was evacuated with her brother John 7 and sister Rosemary 6 from Greenwich to a village in Northampton.
When the children were leaving and put on a bus, my mother said to “Babs, sit in the front seat of the bus and look after John and Rosy. I will be going upstairs with Tommy (my baby brother) and I will stamp my feet when I’m up there to let you know we are there.’ We kept waiting to hear Mum stamp her feet but it never happened and we were very sad.
When we arrive in Northampton we were taken to a church hall to be distributed like cattle. We were rather poor and scruffy and left to the last. At last they asked for the two Dawson girls and my brother stood up and said ’I am a Dawson as well’. He was told that he wasn’t wanted as the family only wanted girls. We felt very sad and lonely to be forced from my brother because we didn’t have our mother with us. The family we were sent to were farm workers. The lady of the house was very house proud and we couldn’t clean our teeth or drink water because the water was brought from the well. I always remember the toilet was at the end of the garden, a wooden bench with a hole in it. Every so often the farm workers emptied it. We weren’t fed very well, it would either be a fried egg for lunch or sometimes a treacle pudding, but not a proper meal. One day my brother came to see us and we weren’t allowed to go out and play with him, only look out the window. We saw John at school and his family were much kinder than ours. He was loved and cuddled and we weren’t. At school we always used to have some of John’s bread and dripping sandwiches, as we were so hungry. They were lovely.
After about 18 months we went back to our Mum in Ruislip as Dad was stationed in the airforce here. I think that was the best time of our lives, Mum worked in the munition’s factory and Dad worked locally in the air force and we were altogether again. I always remember we used to buy sixpenny saving stamps from the post office and stick them on a bomb that was outside the post office. This made me feel so good I thought that I was helping the war.

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from csv/bbclondon on behalf of Barbara Southard and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Southard fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

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