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This story was submitted to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by Wymondham Learning Centre on behalf of Roy Abbot and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was ten years old when the war started. I lived in Hackney with my parents and my three siblings. During the phoney war, we were all evacuated to Castle Carig in Somerset with many other children who were all wearing labels with their names and addresses displayed which were tied to their clothes.

Arriving in a small country village, the lorry containing the children drew up at the village hall. The adult strangers came to meet us to choose one or sometimes two children to take home with them. Fortunately, although split up, the children were taken in pairs. I was taken with my ten year old sister to a large house where they worked in the house and garden. Yes, we were well treated. My two brothers aged eleven and four went to a different home in the village and we kept in touch with each other.

On my way to school in the village I met two older boys, sons of one of the local farmers. They were very kind to me—I found that I loved the outdoor life and I was soon helping on the farm at weekends and after school, as well as doing my other duties.

Horses; large brown shire horses, became part of my life. I ground cattle cake in a machine and then drove a cart to feed the cattle — the horse knew the way!

The large, gentle horses worked hard on the land and when they were finished I often fed them, moving fresh hay to the stables which I had mucked out. One day when the horses had had their work harnesses removed I climbed on the bare back of one — skittish on release the horse cantered away and soon I was on the ground again!

When after several months the expected bombardments had not taken place in London, my mother took me and my sister back to London and there we stayed for the rest of the war, all through the blitz.

My father named William was an A.R.P. Warden. When a raid was imminent, my father would put tin hats on my sister and I and escort us to the overground shelter which served our block of flats. On one occasion when we were sheltering several pieces of shrapnel penetrated the walls. Most people knew the shelters were for morale rather than being of any real protection. My Nan who lived in Nisbet House flats had an underground shelter beside the building. A bomb took off the corner of the block of flats.

In spite of this my greatest fear was of the British gun emplacement nearby in Victoria Park behind the flats. When German attacks came the search lights swung round the sky and bedlam ensued with awful noise of the guns and vibrations so strong that the flats shook. In the midst of all this, while my father worked in perilous situations after the bombing raids, my mother fed the family well and we did not feel deprived, and the family remained healthy and together.

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