大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People War鈥檚 site by Amanda Wu of CSV Media on behalf of Marina Partridge and Muriel Wiltshire (both nee Brady) and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Our first evacuation

We were first evacuated in late 1939 when we were 5 years old.

The first family who took us in was Mr Alcock, a firefighter and his mother who lived in Market Harborough in Leicestershire. They were extremely nice to us and Mrs Alcock was so serious that she wanted to adopt us. When our parents found out, they made us go back home to London and we were sent to another billet.

Mrs Alcock died about 6 months later, some say because of a broken heart.

One town, two very different families

We then went to Wilmslow in Cheshire to stay with the Chadwicks. They had one son themselves, and only one spare bed so we were supposed to be split up and one of us sent to the family next door. Being twins though, we didn鈥檛 want this and luckily we weren鈥檛 split up in the end. The Chadwicks were really good to us, they took us on holidays, let us join the drama club and really treated us as part of the family. They also lived in a nice comfortable house which was luxury to us.

Unfortunately, Mrs Chadwick broke her leg and we were forced to move again.

Our last move was to the Hewitts, also in Wilmslow. Mr Hewitt was away in the army and Mrs Hewitt already had her hands full with 3 kids of her own. Unfortunately, it wasn鈥檛 such a happy time at the Hewitts. The children took away all the nice clothes the Chadwicks had bought us and were unfriendly.

We told our parents and soon we were allowed to go back home to Dagenham. By this time we had been away for 5 years and we were 10 years old. We didn鈥檛 realise that there would be a brother at home, a baby sister had been born whilst we were away, and that we had other brothers and sisters too. We weren鈥檛 close to our parents and we missed the Chadwicks. The house wasn鈥檛 as nice as we were now used to and there were doodle bugs in London so we were forced to play in the rubble.

Going back to visit
More than forty years later, we went back to Market Harborough to visit Mr Alcock the firefighter. It was a surprise visit and we really caught him unaware. He instantly remembered us and he was thrilled. He showed us all these boxes of pictures he had saved of us and we went to the local pub for dinner to catch up. He died only a short time after we saw him.

We also went to Wilmslow to visit the Chadwicks. Unfortunately they had moved away, but their next door neighbour who we didn鈥檛 end up staying with did still recognise us.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.