大象传媒

I was evacuated with my brother John to Thame, Oxfordshire just before the outbreak of War.

At first we lived with a soldier's wife in Moreton, just outside Thame, but with her husband away she could not cope, so we were sent to live with Mr. and Mrs. West, he was the Headmaster at primary school Thame.

At first it went well. Then Mr. West said that as I was so much in front of the other pupils, I would be doing other work. This meant cleaning his mothers grate out in the morning, lighting her fire, filling her coal scuttle and generally doing odd jobs for her (she lived in the house).

I would then do other jobs around the house helping Mrs. West, and doing jobs in the very large garden. There was a swimming pool, which I had to clean and refill on a regular basis.

Mr. West grew tree seedlings, this meant trips to a large wood nearby where he and I delivered said seedlings, we would bring back loads of logs which I then chopped up into firewood and then I delivered barrow loads of the firewood to various houses in town.

On Wednesday evenings I went to Mr. West's sister's general grocery store where I would weigh and pack orders in boxes: -sugar, tea, flour etc.

On Thursday I would go with her in her van and deliver the groceries, in the surrounding area, that took all day.

I can honestly say that I rarely attended school, but when I did, I met the first love of my life, she was an Austrian refugee her name was Elfreda Richter, very pretty with black curly hair. I was smitten but it did not last long because she went to America, she said that we shared the same surname Judge, which is Richter German, so that is how we got together.

The winter of 39/40 meant that not only was I to do his mothers fire, but the fires in the 2 classrooms as well and to keep them made up during the day.
My brother and I made several trips home in 1940. Mr. West knew the lorry driver who collected the milk from the farms, and then to a dairy near Wormwood Scrubs (London), we then caught a 630 bus to Hammersmith. We stayed the weekend, and then caught the lorry back to Thame.

In the summer of 1940 the Dunkirk evacuation led to an enormous number of soldiers camping in open spaces around town, when they first arrived they were a sorry looking group of men, tired, dirty, but they soon spruced up and left.

So life moved on very easily, but our trips home left us feeling homesick.

Mr West said we would like you to stay. Because the war would get worse, but if you must go, we wish you well, so we went home, straight into the Battle of Britain and the Blitz, but that is another story.
P.S. When we stayed with Mr. and Mrs. West it was the first time we had ever been in a bath and brushed our teeth.

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