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Extract from edited transcript of Mrs Ethel Wolley (née Blatchford) interviewed by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Guernsey 5/2/05.
Transcribed by John David

The last two ships the British Government sent, one of them had a handful of passengers on board, but the other one was empty. People by that time had made their mind up whether they were going or they were staying, and the first people to go were the teachers and their helpers, because my sister in law was a pupil teacher, and she and my mother in law went together with the Vale school, they ended up with…
I………. Your mother was living in Cheshire?
It was a village between Nantwich and Crewe, and they looked after children in a big Grange house until the children were put with different families around the village, and then she hired a cottage in the village and she lived there for the rest of the War.
I………. And this was the Vale School?
They went with the children from the Vale School, yes.
But I remember when daylight came hearing all the children — well I saw them, in the twilight passing the house, with their little packets of food, lots of them had their belongings in a pillow case, because in those days people didn’t travel in the way they do today, and there were the children going along quite happily, because they really believed that it was only going to last a year or so, nobody thought the war was going to last five years.

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