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I was evacuated from Barnes in London to Dittisham in Devon with my sister when we were aged 11 and 8. Recently I went into my granchildren's Primary School in Birmingham to tell them about my experiences of being an evacuee as WW2 is their current history topic. I spoke to a hall full of fascinated faces and would like to share my story with others.
This is what I said:

Good morning everybody.

My name is Mrs. Tomlin and I have come to your school today to tell you a true story. I am going to read it so that I don’t miss anything out. It’s a true story and it happened 65 years ago when I was 11 years old and my little sister was 8 and we became evacuees.

The word ‘evacuee’ means ‘someone who is taken from a dangerous place and sent to a place where they will be safe and it is usually connected with wartime. And that is what happened to us.

We lived in London, which was likely to be bombed, so the Government asked all the parents if they would agree to have their children sent away to the country so that they would be safe.

I wasn’t compulsory. They could say, ‘No’ if they didn’t want their children to go but our Mummy and Daddy decided that it would be better for us to go away from London. All over the country parents were deciding whether or not to send their children away, as all the big cities like Birmingham were not really safe for children to stay in in case they were bombed. And so it was decided that we should be evacuated with our school on a certain day.

We were told what to bring with us for the journey and our mother made each of us a little blue haversack to carry our food in. I remember being told to bring a packet of nuts and raisins, a bar of chocolate and an apple and Mummy made us some sandwiches too.

We ser off one morning in May 1940 with our haversacks and gas masks (you had to carry them wherever you went in case the enemy dropped bombs full of poison gas) and we each had a label pinned to our coats with our names on. We were taken to the railway station where there were a lot of children from other schools and we had to say goodbye to our Mummies and Daddies and get on the train. There were quite a few tears, especially from the Mummies as they didn’t know where there children were being sent or when they would see them again.

When I had a little girl of my own, I realised how my mother must have felt as she waved us goodbye. She also had to wave goodbye to my four brothers who had to join the Army and Air Force and go off to war, so it was a very sad time for her.

We got on the train and I was very pleased to see that my favourite teacher whose name was Miss Mobsby was coming with us. Our teachers had to be evacuated to look after us and help the teachers in the school that we would be going to. Some children had never been on a train before and at first it was very exciting. We were in a carriage with our friends and we waved out of the windows to everyone we passed.

We travelled through miles and miles of countryside and we had no idea where we were going. The journey (it was over 300 miles) took all day and we were getting further and further from home. Some children were sent abroad to Canada and America and even New Zealand, but some of the ships carrying the evacuees were sunk by the enemy and many children were drowned, so that arrangement was stopped as it was too dangerous.

My best friend Daphne was in the same carriage as we were but she was very unhappy. She didn’t want to go away at all and she had already written a letter to her mother to take her home again while we were still on the train. Joyce, my 8 year-old sister was quite happy, thank goodness. To her it was an adventure and, of course, she didn’t know that it would be three years before we went home again, but then neither did I.

I was 11 years old and very much the big sister and Mummy had told me to look after Joyce and to make sure we were not separated. Wherever we went we were to stay together.

Eventually the train stopped but it was not the end of the journey — just a stop for us to have some lemonade and biscuits and yet another head inspection by the nit-nurse and then off we went again.
At last the train reached its destination and we were put into some coaches and driven through the country lanes to a very pretty village called Dittisham on the River Dart in Devon.

We got off the coaches and went into the schoolroom to wait until we were taken to our new homes. Thw children went off one by one with the people who were going to look after them but Joyce and I waited — and waited — and waited. It seemed as though nobody wanted to take us in.
The trouble was that most of the villagers had room for only one child not two, as there homes were not very big and they had children of their own. They considered sending us to a farm outside the village but decided that it was too far for Joyce to walk to school as she was only little.
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When we were almost giving up hope, a lade arrived and we watched Miss Mobsby talking to her, telling her about us. She was almost the last person to come as the villagers had been told to come in alphabetical order and her name began with a T. She was called Mrs. Tozer. She had come to collect one boy but I think that the sight of two woebegone little girls was too much for her and she took us home. We had lemonade and biscuits and then went to find the lady’s husband who was down by the river painting his boat. She had to tell him that instead of one boy they thought they would have, she had brought home two girls. But he didn’t seem to mind as they had no children of their own.
As we walked back to the cottage, I kept wondering what I should call them. We couldn’t call them ‘Mummy and Daddy’ because they weren’t our Mummy and Daddy and I wondered if we should call them Mr. and Mrs. Tozer. So I decided to ask. I said, ‘What should we call you?’ And they replied, ‘Oh, I think it should be Auntie Ivy and Uncle Ron, don’t you?’ So that is what they became.

When we went to bed that night, Joyce fell asleep straight away but I lay awake thinking how different things had become in just one day. Here we were in a cottage in the country with an orchard of fruit trees and chickens running about - so different from our London flat with its small garden.
And Auntie Ivy was downstairs writing a letter to Mummy to tell her not to worry and that she would look after us as if we were her own children. And this she did.

So began our happiest childhood years in spite of the war. We entered into the life of the village and made friends with the village children — friends that we still have today. We joined the church choir and took part in concerts in the village hall and attended the village school.

Auntie Ivy had a large family of brothers and sisters who all became our aunties and uncles and we had a really lovely time. They were all so kind to us. But not all evacuees were as lucky as we were. Some were not treated so kindly. We heard later that one girl in our group was treated just like a servant and was not even allowed to have meals with the family. She had to eat all on her own and must have been very unhappy.

After a while we began to notice that more and more American ships were gathering in the river and gradually more and more soldiers were to be seen in the area. This was because preparations were being made for the D-Day invasion of France in June 1944. It was then decided that the area was becoming too dangerous for us to stay there as the ships might be bombed, so we had to return home. We had to say a tearful farewell to Auntie and Uncle and go back to London — and I’m afraid we didn’t want to go at all!

Auntie and Uncle were so sad to say goodbye to us and to be without children again, so they adopted a little girl of 3 years old. They called her Joy and she always said that if Joyce and I had not been evacuated to Auntie and Uncle, she would probably never have been adopted by them and loved by them. We later discovered that if our parents had been killed in the Blitz, then Auntie and Uncle would have adopted us.

But, thank goodness, our parents were not killed and, though a bomb was dropped in our road and our flat was damaged and all the windows blown out, nobody was hurt. So Joyce and I came home and, more remarkably, all four brothers came safely home again, although one of them had suffered terribly in a prison camp in the Far East.

Uncle Ron died at the age of 70 but Auntie Ivy lived to be 95. We always kept in touch with her and used to visit her every summer and we still visit Joy, her daughter. Auntie died just a little while ago and when her house was cleared, they came across the label that Joyce wore when she was evacuated. Mine had disappeared but we still have Joyce’s — the only relic of our evacuee days, apart from our very happy memories.

I believe that next week you are going on a train journey and are going to pretend to be evacuees as we were.

When you get home after your trip, I should like you all to give your Mummies and Daddies and Carers a big hug and think how lovely it is to be home again and how lucky you are that our country is not at war and you have not got to be sent away and become evacuees.

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