大象传媒

This story is a true account of the World War 2 experiences of my sister, cousin and I. It is dedicated with apprecion to the memory of the late Reverend Richard Seymour and his sister who lovingly cared for us as evacuees during those troubled times.

To start at the beginning, I am Tony and I lived with my parents Frederick and Lillian Clark with my sisters, Patricia and Peggy and my elder brother Victor in Dalston, Hackney prior to the outbreak of WW2 in 1939. My father worked at the Royal Docks, Canning Town as a Cargo Supervisor.

I was six years of age and went to the Mayfield Road school with my brother and sisters when Phase 1 of the Evacuation Programme commenced in August that year. It involved various teachers getting us children out of the high bombing risk areas of London to the more safer parts of the country by train or coach.

So one morning my brother, sisters and I found ourselves with our gas masks, belongings and packed sandwiches, accompanied by some of our teachers on our way to Northampton. On arrival we were taken to Weston Savel school. Then on to our allocated homes by our teachers accompanied their teachers and an Inspector.

Victor and Peggy were lucky enough to be placed with a Mrs Daniels who loved children and took six into her home. They were very happy and stayed with her throughout the war.

We were unfortunate to be placed with a young family with a baby. Things went sadly wrong when we were in Kettering Market a short time later at the time the air raid sirens were tested. Unfortunately the husband of the lady we were staying with rushed back home in panic and started to dig a hole in the back garden to protect us from air raid attacks. When my sister wrote and told our parents that the man had been taken into hospital with a nervous problem, my father was so concerned that he came and took us back home.

If my memory serves me right we remained at home for about nine months until the bombing of London Docks started and resulted in my father being transferred to the Clyde Emergency Anchorage at Gourock in Scotland at very short notice, leaving my mother to care for my sister and I on her own. At the same time, although living in the same house we were transferred to Wilton Way School where there was a more established childrens evacuation programme in operation.

On the morning of our evacuation this time we were joined by our cousin Michael Ellis with strict instructions from my mother that we were not to be split up because of what had previously happened to my sister and I. We marched from Dalston to Hackney Downs railway station with identification labels attached to our clothing with our school banners and belongings to catch the train to Waterloo before eventually catching the train to Devon.

During the journey the train stopped a couple of times to allow us to get refreshments or go to the toilets.

Some of the children with their teachers got off the train at Bideford. Our group got off at Umberleigh station and were taken to Chittlehampton village school in taxis. In the hall we stood on display as if at a market place, subject to the stares and discussions between teachers and, villagers who were trying to reducetheir chances of taking on a problem or bedwetting child. As much as it can be a problem with children growing up. It can be brought on or made worse for an anxious war stressed child living away from its parents home. People who took on such children were given a rubber sheet for the childs bed. Then be faced with the task of having to very frequently wash the childs night wear and change the bedding. A thing which some people would consider too much of an inconvenience.

The process of selection continued until it got down to the last two groups of three. Us and another two boys and a girl whose parents didn't want splitting up.

To our surprise providence played its hand when the local vicar said that there was plenty of room for the six of us to live with his family at the vicarage about half a mile outside the village. With the formalities completed we were taken with our belongings to the Reverend Seymour's Hillman Minx car outside the church and churchyard of St Hieritha next to the school. On the opposite side of the square was the Bell public house. In the middle of the square was the village water pump. On another side was the village shop and some houses with more opposite facing them. In other words the border of one side of the square is the road passing through the village.

To approach the vicarage we turned off the road and entered the short driveway passing the open gates supported by pillars. The house was a very large Victorian redbrick building with double bay windows and a large front garden with an orchard on one side of it . There were two farms with a long road at the back of the house leading to one of them.

We were shown into the house with our belongings and taken to our bedrooms in the attic. We were split up into pairs, two to a bedroom, each having their own bed with the boys sharing a room.

The family group consisted of the vicar and his sister together with an uncle who had served with the rank of Commander in the Royal Navy during the First World War, with deteriorating health problems caused by his experiences in action. In addition was the baby and wife of the vicars son who was away on active service with the rank of Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy.

We were introduced to the cook, maid and bootboy who were employed as servants. At every meal grace was said irrespective of whether we were eating in the dining room or the kitchen annexe. Something we had to become accustomed to because we did not do so at home.

Living with the vicar meant that we six children became part of the already existing church choir of six which doubled the size of the choir. Sunday was our main working day consisting of Morning Service, Evening Service and Sunday School at which we took it in turns to pump the church organ.

We had only been at the vicarage for a short time when we had a letter from my mother telling us that she had moved to Gourock to join my father. From that day on we had weekly letter writing sessions to keep our parents informed about how we were getting on. At the vicarage we were encouraged to get on with our school work and learn what was happening about us. At first it was strange because we had only seen farm animals in books in London.

When my sister and I left London my mother was standing in long queues to get food for us. Close to the vicarage the vicar who was a keen bee keeper, had twelve hives which gave the family a supply of honey for our breakfast toast. There were also plots of land where, cabbages, green beans, cauliflower,carrots, potatoes, beetroot, celery, sweeds, garden peas, lettuces and tomatoes were grown. There were pear and apple trees in the orchard, where fallen apples were collected and used for cider making. Strawberries, rhubarb and plums were also grown. On various occasions we went out around the farms picking blackberries together with apples and pears from the orchard.

About a hundred yards from the vicarage there was a grain farms run by a family who were friends of the vicar. At various times throught the year we were all invited there for meals or Sunday lunch. They also had many chickens there and supplied us with eggs at times. Occasionally we were lucky enough to get rabbits off of them to help with our meat ration. We helped with the harvesting which was very interesting with the big steam driven machine cutting down the grain which was then tied up in bundles. As the machine worked its way around the field the bewildered scared rabbits would be driven into the centre of the field and caught before being killed for food.

Our visits to the more distant farm with the lambs, sheep and pigs were not so often because we were not allowed to go off wandering too far from the vicarage unsupervised. However on fine days we did walk to and from the village school. Some of the children in school told us that we had to do what we were told, living with the vicar. They were most definitely right. We were subject to a disciplined routine and encouraged to learn. If God hadn't fully planned the following days routine, the vicar had and it wasn't long before we'd started to learn about manners, etiquette and spending our time usefully. The time we spent there most certainly gave me more confidence and influenced my working outlook on life.

We were always very happy when we were told that the vicars son was coming home on leave because it resulted in his big Bentley car being taken off the wooden blocks in one of the garages at the back of the house, put back on the road with them being taken on enjoyable day trips to Barnstaple and Instow where the time passed so quickly. After his leave was over, the car was put back up on blocks again in the garage to prevent damage to the tyre walls as the result of the car standing in the same place for a long time period.

During the time we were staying at the vicarage a German aircraft dropped,which I think was a bomb in a field at the back of the village school which killed two cows and made a big hole in the ground, which caused quite a number of curious people to come to the village to have a look. From what I can remember people talked about it for weeks after.

One day in 1943 my mother came to the vicarage and told us that she had left my father working in Scotland and was living with my grandparents at Woodford in Essex, after learning that our house in Hackney had been bombed. We were very happy when she told us that she was going to take us with her to live in the house next door to my grandfather.

A fact of life is that things don't always work out for the best as planned. The reality of the unexpected situation was the start of the V1 and V2 bombing raids in the London areas. Needless to say that Woodford was also subject to these attacks. In addition we found that the food in Woodford was more scarce due to rationing, with my mother having to spend a lot of time waiting in queues to get the extra food for us. There were no more uninterrupted restful nights of sleep and morning awakenings to the tweetering of the birds and other countryside sounds. The truth of the situation was that we spent many a restless cold night wrapped up in blankets with our clothes on in our Anderson shelter.

In school the talk was about the previous day or night air attacks and its casualties, with the sights of damage and sounds of the rescue people at work making buildings safe in our local area.

My grandfather had a small garden in which he grew what he could for food. Unlike living
in the countryside, our choice of vegetables, meat and fruit was very limited.

Towards the end of the war my father had returned home and continued to work on the docks. The vicars son was awarded the DSO for his wartime services and went to Buckingham Palace for the presentation of his award by King George V1.

At the invitation of the vicar and his family, we met them outside Buckingham Palace after the awarding ceremony was over and had our photographs taken before going for a meal with them.

While still at school I became interested in football and could only get beyond the stage of kicking a ball about the school yard by becoming a member of a club team. Since the only team in our area was run by the Boy's Brigade from the local Methodist church. To progress with my football playing I had to join the Boys Brigade and attend the church services. In particular I remember the Harvest Festival service that I attended while rationingwas still on. From the limited selection of food we gave thanks for at that service, it made me realise just how fortunate we had been living at the vicarage in Devon. I promised myself that I would one day go back to Devon and visit St Hieritha's Church and vicarage.

I was 14 years of age when I left school and started working as a messenger Boy at St Catherine's dock by Tower Bridge. Needless to say that National Service followed a few years later and I served my two years in the Royal Tank Regiment. On completion of my National Service I returned to work at the docks.

In 1974 I came to work in Cardiff as the timber wharf superintendent. My sister with her family and mine have been to visit the vicarage on a number of occasions starting in 1974. My last visit there was in 1997 when we attended a service at the church and met a young vicar who was the rural dean looking after three churches. He told us that the Reverend Richard Seymour, his sister, uncle and son had all passed away and showed us some of their family graves in the church yard. The vicars sister had been killed in a tragic road accident by the boot boy who had run her over her over with his bicycle while descending a hill as she walked home from church.

Unfortunately the Rural Dean did not live at the vicarage, so we were unable to go inside to refresh our memories. However my sister visited the place on another occasion and was taken inside to see the rooms in the attic which brought back her childhood memories.

During this visit we had a meal in the Bell and met a couple of the local people who still remembered us. I bought a Bell jersey as a momento.

My treasured possessions are the Holy Bible which thhe Reverend Seymour signed and gave to me as a birthday present all of those years ago. In addition I have a photograph of my young sister standing by the pump in the village square.

On occasions I have heard the Songs Of Praise Radio Programme with Roger Royle and the sounds of a congregation singing, 鈥淟oving Shepherd Of Thy Sheep or We Plough The Fields And Scatter The Good Seed On The Land,鈥� brings my wartime memories back to me and reminds me how lucky we were. It also gives food for solelm thought when I think of the evacuated children who did not survive the war.

This account has been written by Malcolm Mort, Cardiff Merchant Navy Association. Information gatherer, 大象传媒 WWII project. Its publication has been authorised by Mr. Clark.

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