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The War Years 1939-1945

My name is Beryl Chandler and this is an account of my experiences as a child of 12 years old at the outbreak of War. My father died from War wounds in November 1938, so my mother and myself were alone in London.

It started in the year 1938. I was at school in London , St Vincent de Paul and in the summer of 1938 we were told to bring a case and a blanket with name tags on our person, ready for evacuation from London. It did not materialize and we returned back to normal.

The following year 1939 it was for real. We assembled at school together with case, gas mask and a name tag. Then we were all marched to Victoria Station and put on a train. After this we boarded a bus and were taken to Fordcombe in Kent. Unfortunately there were too many children for this small hamlet so we were taken on to Leigh near Tonbridge, The village green seemed enormous to us with its large chestnut trees. Coming from London it was all so different. Several people were there reading lists and allocating children to families. Myself and an Austrian girl , Ruth Fleishman were taken to a Mr and Mrs Macpherson at the Home Farm on the Hollenden Estate. Lady Hollenden was often seen in the village. At the outbreak of war she organized, together with other local women, a casualty unit in the village hall. They were all dressed in nursing outfits. However the only casualties were evacuees with minor scratches.

Some children were not so lucky with accommodation. To accommodate the children, a farmer allowed some children to have an empty house. He made mattresses with sacks filled with straw to put on the floor. The children cried as they were not used to these conditions. Others were the same, put into stables on the Hollendale Estate which incidentally they set fire to! Eventually our farmers wife found two evacuees too much and decided one of us must go. She chose Ruth to stay as her mother, being a foreigner, could only travel 5 miles and therefore could not visit her. I, therefore, went to a house out of the village and into the country with other children. Here, from the upstairs windows we could see the fires of London. Also we used to walk to mass held in the village by the Sisters of Charity. Many times we sheltered under trees, whilst dog fights raged overhead. It was very frightening at times.

One night a bomb dropped 100 yards from the house. We were lucky it missed us — at the time a farmer was in the field with a lantern looking at his cows. As it was pitch dark the bomber must have thought it was a light in our house!

Later they moved us to a house in the village. It was a very large house with a cellar which went up to the church , of course this was blocked off. Mothers from London with their children looked after us. We were fed sausages and potatoes for days and weeks on end. There was a lack of variety in our food which led to malnutrition with outbreaks of scabies, impetigo and heavy nose bleeds. Myself, I had a huge boil on my back. We were taken somewhere, I can’t remember where, for treatment.

At the outbreak of war Sept 1939, my mother worked for two doctors and a dentist, As war was declared the Doctors had to go immediately into the Armed Forces. My mother was devastated, not only had she lost my father but my brother was also serving with the 8th Armoured Division in North Africa. My mother decided to do her bit and joined the Army as a cook. This was short lived though as she became ill and had pleurisy and was invalided out. This was a blessing for me as she took a vacancy for a Housekeeper to an elderly gentleman in the village and I went to live with her. During the war and after she looked after numerous children sent to us from the “Women’s Voluntary Service and The Education Authorities. Our house was always full of children. The elderly gentleman they called grandad and he kept a well stocked garden of vegetables. We lived well with good food and plenty of tomatoes and fruit from the garden We all lived very happily. I must also mention that I was very happy on the “Home Farm’ too — there were pigs with piglets, Shire horses, cows and a bull in a large shed. There was a passage through the shed but I was terrified when the Bull bellowed. Also there was sheep and a shepherd with an Old English Sheepdog.

Two minutes from our house was the Town hall where dancing was held about every two weeks. I looked forward to this but it held some embarrassing moments too. When there was an air raid my mother arrived complete with tin helmet to take me home! At home when there was an air raid we assembled on the stairs, mother thought this was the safest place to be.

The army convoys used to pass our house when out on manouevers . Mother made jugs of tea and many a jug was lost as they had to move on. There were 3 soldiers who visited us regularly, Frank whose wife stopped a while, Amos and Eric. I never got to know whether they survived the war but my mother used to treat them all as her sons.

I remember when the trains came back from Dunkirk, we watched from the embankment and many were very heavily bandaged.

Army troops were stationed near the village and also Airmen. They came often to the two public houses, The Brick and The Fleur de Lys. I remember the soldiers hadn’t been paid due to waiting the command to start the invasion of Europe. However as it had been so long it was decided to pay them. As usual they came down to the village for a pint and to see loved ones. Word came through and they had to leave immediately, leaving their unfinished drinks. I saw a Sergeant Major push his wife away and he sped off in the jeep. Frank was at our house and he jumped the wall and off he went.

The worst part of the war was the doodle bug bombs. This shattered our nerves. They would make a clac clac sound and we waited for the sound to stop as it would drop with devastating results. You just waited and hoped. We had an iron table put into the kitchen due to this, where we would sleep.

The worst tragedy was when a small boy named Jimmy picked up a hand grenade on the way to school In school it went off killing himself and the girl in front named Joan. Joan’s family had a double tragedy. Not long before Joan’s’ brother, Les was sitting in our kitchen, he had come to see if my brother was coming home as he would have liked to speak to him about the Middle East where he was expecting to go next, Les was an air force pilot. He also spoke to my mother about how he looked forward to seeing his young sister Joan grow up. On the very day Joan was killed the family heard Les was missing presumed dead. The Chandlers had four children, the loss of the eldest and the youngest was terrible to bear.

On VE day there were many celebrations held in London and elsewhere but Leigh was dead. A friend and I sat on a seat in the Village Green!

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