大象传媒

My husband; Harry Cropper was evacuated to Penygroes a few months after the War was declared. Being a young boy of 7 years of age, along with my older brother; Albert of 10, we were very distressed at the thought of leaving our dear parents and our eldest brother; John who was employed at the time. We were taken to a school hall in Penygroes, North Wales. We were all lined up thinking we would never be chosen to go to our foster home as most of the evacuees had been chosen and gone to their billets. We were eventually taken by a man to a small farm which was to be our foster home.
There was the farmer, his wife and son, the son being about 14 to 16yrs old. Our first night, we were very tearful and my husband was very sick in the bed, we were very afraid and bewildered. The son seemed very jealous, and we were very unhappy. The son was very nasty with us. Albert wrote and told his mother about the life we were having. Our mum came up and was very upset. However, we moved on to another billet; a sheep farmer. The lady was very nice and very kind top myself and Albert. We lived in the cottage on the farm. We had no running water, gas or electricity; it was very basic. We attended Penygroes school. During my life as an evacuee, myself and two sisters were sent out after tea from our second billet to collect deck chairs off the prom in Aberystwyth. Our foster mother鈥檚 husband worked on the deck chairs, so we were told to go out and help. We were given a bag of chips for helping. The soldiers would throw sweets down to us as they occupied the old hotels. At that time is was a treat to us children. we returned home to Liverpool, the bombing continued, but we were back with our family.

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