大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War Site by Durham Clayport Library on behalf of Molly Tate and has been added with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

As a 13 year old girl in 1939 I was a pupil at Saint Andrews R. C. Mixed School in Newcastle and I lived in Nazareth House Orphanage also in Newcastle. Early in August we were gathered in the school hall and some people came to show us how to put on and adjust a gas mask, this was 鈥渏ust in case鈥� there was a war, we thought this was great fun. Then in September it was a reality and we were evacuated to Nazareth House in Carlisle. While we prepared for this it was very exciting, packing clothes and food etc. was great like we were going on an adventure, but saying goodbye at the Central Station was sad and on arrival at Carlisle we were all quite upset. We were taken to a bleak building; given seats and some hot 鈥淏rown Windsor鈥� soup and to this day I have never touched it again. We were given a carrier bag with a tin of corned beef, a tin of soup, a packet of cream crackers and a packet of Marie biscuits then set off to walk to the Convent on Etterby Scaur Road which was about a mile away. On arrival we saw lots of boys playing football in a big square and we thought things looked so much brighter and they were. We didn鈥檛 have any signs of war there but on returning to Newcastle on June 1941 there was a lot of activity, five of us returned because we had left school at fourteen years of age. We saw the bombs dropping on Newcastle Goods Yard and the German plane crashing down, the searchlight, very scary, but very exciting to young children. Next morning we found the casing of 28 flares in the grounds of Nazareth House and on going into town we visited the area of the Goods Yard which was still smouldering, smelling of burnt sugar and what looked like burnt treacle running down the gutters. Fortunately we didn鈥檛 hear of any deaths except the German pilot but the devastation was scary and heartbreaking.

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