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MILDRED DAVIDSON

This story was given to Conor Garrett and transcribed by volunteer Wendy Cornett

Evacuated to ….Ballymoney
Q - Where were you evacuated from and to where?

I was brought up in Albert Bridge fire station. Dad was out at a bomb in a margarine factory and when he came in the next morning, his uniform was all stinking with the margarine; it was also so stiff with the margarine that it stood up on its own. He informed my two brothers and I that we were being evacuated that day. I was evacuated to Ballymoney and my two brothers, Tom and Desmond, were evacuated to Dunmurray, which was very rural then, not like now. I couldn't get used to the quietness in Ballymoney after being used to all the noise in a fire station, because above my bedroom there was a siren. When that siren when off, believe you me, you got out of your bed.

Q - It was a very heart wrenching time. What sort of sadness did you face or was it a sense of adventure for you at the time?

In a way it was a sense of adventure, but it was totally different from what I had been used to because I had lived all my life in the fire station and lived with that noise. I was just taken out and put into this quietness - the quietness was very strange to me, but eventually before I returned to Belfast, I had got used to it and came home with a Ballymoney accent.

Q - What age were you at the time?

I was between 10 and 11.

Q - So you were very aware of what was going on? Were you getting reports of what was going on in the city? You must have been very worried about your folks and stuff?

We did and you just automatically thought about your parents and how they were getting on. You would worry about how your father was getting on because he was in such a dangerous job in the fire service. We saw them occasionally, maybe once every 6 months. In those days there wasn't much transport. They had to wait to get transport to Ballymoney, which to me seemed like thousands of miles away.

Q - Was it a farm?

No it wasn't a farm. It was my aunt's bungalow, where there were 3 girls living. It was a different world altogether. But you went down to the farm for the milk, and brought it back in a tin can.

Q - Do you think it helped you mature very quickly?

Oh yes, very much so, but it was happy days up in Ballymoney. I have been back there, but everything is built up now and the faces are all changed, but I have those memories.

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