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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Odilia Roberts from the Derby Action Team on behalf of Jean Johnson and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

We have happy memories of wartime because we were too young to know the horrors of war.

The one big impact to our lives was the arrival of the evacuees from London. We were lucky as our Londoner was Connie from a nice clean family. Mum told me how pathetic these children looked as they sat wearing a name label and clutching a parcel of clothes and a gas mask.
I first met Connie when I got up one morning and saw a strange girl sitting near my dolls cot. From that moment she was one of the family, getting help, praise or a good hiding as we did. Connie arrived two days before war was declared and stayed with us nearly all the time until 1945. Mum wasn’t going to take in a child but went just to accompany her sister, but she took pity on them and came home with one after all.

Connie told me that she went to school that day as usual. They were each given a gas mask and were lined up to march down the middle of the road to the station. People were crying at the roadside and it puzzled her. Some older children cried but Connie said to them at was an exciting adventure, and didn’t realise she wouldn’t be going home that night.
She remembers sitting in the village school and people walking round them. Then she was taken home by ‘Auntie Chris’ and put into bed with a little boy who was friendly and next morning he showed her our hens. These were fascinating as she’d never been near a live hen before. Most of these London children were terrified when the cows came down the lane for milking.

Connie and I are still friends and manage to meet sometimes. We both have lovely memories of our carefree days in the countryside.

NB. I have sent the story I have written in full, for our grandchildren who have found it very interesting.

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