大象传媒

Our Home during the war was at Twywell, a small village in Northamptonshire. In the early 1950鈥檚 we moved approximately 8 miles to Brigstock, another small village in Northamptonshire, where I still live today in the same house. The following is the history of my life during the war years with the evacuees I gave a home to.

What a memory it brings to me, the pictures from the past are still clear today.
In August 1939, my husband was at work in the steel works at nearby Corby, and one afternoon, I heard heavy feet coming up my garden path. Bump, Bump, on my back door. When I went to see who it was, there stood two soldiers. 鈥淪apper Clipsom here?鈥� I looked at them and wondered what they wanted. So I said, 鈥淣o, he is at work鈥�. 鈥淲here does he work?鈥� they asked. 鈥� We have come to fetch him, it鈥檚 a call-up鈥�. As he was in the Territorial鈥檚, he went on a months training every year, and thinking they were from the TA, I told them he had just finished this years exercise, how wrong I was.
Off the two soldiers went, giving me instructions to get his uniform out. On following these soldiers out to the street, all the neighbours were out, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 the matter my dear, what do they want?鈥� When I told them, they said not to worry, as it is only a 7-day scare. Those 7 days lasted over 6 years for me!
My husband went to India and Ceylon. The first man to go out of the village and I think he was the last to come home. Well, there was just my son, Barry, 8 months old and myself. I cannot say what my feelings were.
Evacuees were to come to our village, and the authorities were asking for people to take them in, so I said I would. I can still see that bus bringing them. Poor little children, wondering why they had to leave their parents and home. Well I finished with having 2, a girl and a boy, brother and sister. I think the girl was 5 years old, and her brother aged 7 years. Their names were Doreen and Arthur Collin, and they originated from Marylebone. They looked so tired. We soon made friends, and when we took them in the fields and gathered blackberries, I don鈥檛 think they had seen fields before, let alone pick blackberries.
I remember taking them to Kettering, and on the bus there were other evacuees. We went by the fields where the farmers had cut the corn and were standing the sheath鈥檚 of corn on end against each another, when a boy saw a rabbit run into one of the sheaves and shouted 鈥淐or they even have air-raid shelters for rabbits鈥�. It was frightening at times, but we managed to laugh.
The two evacuees staying with me, did not stay long, as their home in London was bombed and their father took them to a relative in the north of England. My next evacuee was a 13-year-old girl from Chelsea, London, Joan Smith. She was good company for me, and she was a wonderful needleworker, her parents were evacuated to Thrapston, a nearby village, and her father wanted her to be with them.
Well, I still had them coming, next were two sisters from Lewisham, Marianne and Anita Wigg, lovely children. They stayed with me until the war was over, and they all drifted back home. I was sorry to see them go, but they kept in touch. What happened鈥he 鈥榙oodle-bugs鈥� started to come over, and Marianne and Anita were evacuated again. This time to Devon. I was asked to have a little girl who was already an evacuee, but the lady she was staying with had to go into hospital to give birth to her baby. Her name was Doreen Turvey, her home was in Dagenham, and she came to stay on Christmas Eve, so I took her into Kettering and bought her a doll. She thought Father Christmas had bought it for her. Doreen stayed with me until the end of the following October, when my husband came home after nearly 6 years away.
Recently I saw a programme on the TV showing evacuees at a London gathering. I keep wondering if those of mine were there, I would love to meet up with them again.

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