大象传媒

I went to a school called North View School in Heaton. I remember there being a trial run in preparation for evacuation when we were taken down to Heaton Train Station. On the actual day I remember being on the station with our labels attached, and pillow cases with our clothes in as we did not have real cases.

I was evacuated with my brother Walter (aged 5); I was 7, and my sisters Ethel (9), Agnes (11) and Susie (13). We lived in a back to back terraced house. We boarded the train with our school teacher who advised us all on personal hygiene, and gave us food and sweets. We all had a carrier bag with a tin of corned beef.

When we got to Wooler the older were charged with the care of the younger ones. We waited until last to be chosen by someone to stay with them. No one seemed to want 5 children as they didn鈥檛 have room. Eventually Mrs Sophie Robson arrived and took us in her car to the Ingram Valley. We鈥檇 never been in a car before!

She took us to her farm which was Reavely Farm. There was a maid called Edith and other staff, a cottage next door where the Shepard and his wife Mr and Mrs Glendining lived. We were all given rooms but there was no bed short for Walter and what looked like a very large crib was found much to Walter鈥檚 dismay who said 鈥淚鈥檓 not going in any cot鈥�

Mrs Robson and her family were very kind to us 鈥� and in some ways we鈥檇 never had it so good. We were enrolled into the local school which was about one and a half miles away (the school is now the Information Centre at Ingram Valley). The church we attended, St Michael鈥檚, is just over the path to it. We regularly attended church and received bibles for our good attendance 鈥� I鈥檝e still got mine.

We received good guidance from Mrs Robson who kept us right! She was very kind. When we came in from school the made would have batter prepared and we would have dropped scones. We saw a life we hadn鈥檛 seen before there.

We were warned about aeroplanes flying over, if we heard anything we were told we must hid at the side of the road and lie very still. Well our Agnes has always been a joker and one day we heard an aeroplane and she shouted 鈥淓verybody down, everybody down鈥�. We all crowded into a ditch and we were all filthy only to find it was a farm tractor and not an aeroplane at all. Agnes was a scallywag!

We were all very happy there. Our father came a few times to see us but as well off as we were, for all we loved it there, we would still cry for home.

We used to make butter in the dairy and the maid when the butter was made on birthdays or special occasions she鈥檇 do a pat of butter with your initial on top. I remember Susan having a big swirly S on top of hers.

It was lovely on the farm. The rabbit catcher would call in. It was so different. Mum didn鈥檛 come to see us but what we didn鈥檛 realise was that she was having another baby. As the war got worse it was we decided we would return to Newcastle to be together as a family. We came back into the bombing but my parents decided if we were going to go we were going to go together.
Many of the streets around us were bombed and my brother and I would go out collecting shrapnel together. We had quite a collection! The bombs were terrifying, and we didn鈥檛 have an air raid shelter so we sheltered under the stairs of the house. When Guildford Place was bombed down the road it was so close that it sounded like it had dropped next door. I was screaming 鈥淭hey鈥檝e dropped the bomb in Wilson鈥檚 sink鈥� and I literally thought they鈥檇 dropped the bomb in next door鈥檚 back yard!

Later we used to shelter in the cellar of a local meeting place others from our neighbourhood and there was a good community feeling, with singing when we were all together. I remember an Air Raid Warden singing 鈥淭he Yeoman of England鈥�.
I can also remember my mother wearing a grey and doing the fire watch.

Eventually we did have a shelter, but I remember one night in the cellar we heard that Denmark Street had been hit. We thought that our parents had been killed. They hadn鈥檛 but it was so upsetting to think they had that the memory can still upset me even to this day.

Years later Mrs Robson鈥檚 daughter Dorothy contacted me after finding my name in the church visitor鈥檚 book. She told me her mother was still alive and would love to see me so we arranged to meet. My son took to see her and he came too. When she opened the door I couldn鈥檛 believe I was seeing this lovely lady again, she was so nice to us. I was able to visit her a few times after that before she died.

I then learned Reavley was up for sale. I told my sisters and we returned together to see the place again. We viewed it from the outside and it seemed so small compared to our memory of it, because we were older of course. We weren鈥檛 able to get inside but then we saw a tractor coming along the lane and we spoke to the young man driving it, and explained our situation and asked if he knew who may hold the key. He said he had a key and he let us go through that house again.

It was a lovely experience our six months in that home and a big thing in our lives. It gave us an insight into other people. We were just a working class family and she was a lovely lady. We were very lucky

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