大象传媒

i'm a pupil from Heaton Manor Comprehensive School, Newcastle upon Tyne,entering Mina Reay's story onto the website, and they fully understand the website terms and conditions of use.

I moved from Northumberland to Gateshead on the 4th September, a day after war was declared. When I first moved to Gateshead that was the first time that we had heard of sliced bread. When the first sirens went off, me and my brother thought we were going to die so we ate all of our bread rations, (two slices of bread), but we didn鈥檛 die.

When we first arrived in Gateshead I didn鈥檛 go to school because they were closed. After a month of being in Gateshead me my sister and brother got evacuated. I was 9, my sister was 5 and my brother was 11. My two older sisters stayed at home because they were to old to be evacuated. We got on a train at Gateshead station; there were crowds of children. All of the children had their gasmasks in little cardboard boxes, hanging round their neck with string and their supply of food from their parents to take with them. Nobody knew where they were going, all we knew was we were going to somewhere in Yorkshire.

When we arrived, we were sent to a place called Great Ayton. We had to stand there until someone picked you and they would look after you. A woman called Mrs. Simpson, who said she would have two girls, took my sister and me but my brother got taken to a farm. We still stayed in contact with my brother; we also went to the same school. We stayed at Mrs. Simpson鈥檚 house for about six months, because her husband was in the navy and he got hurt and had to come out of the navy.

We moved to another house and my brother moved with us because it was a big house. They were called Mr and Mrs. Burton, they were nice but very strict, we had to sing our prays every night. We stayed there for about six to nine months, but then we had to leave because Mr and Mrs. Burton moved to Redcar.

My brother moved back home, and my sister and me went to stay at Mr and Mrs Robson鈥檚 house, they had a huge garden with lots of fruit and vegetables in. Mr Robson was a Taylor, but at weekends he was a lay preacher and he used to go to different villages preaching. Mr Robson used to take me with him and sometimes me sister as well. People in the villages used to make proper Sunday tea. We also used to go potato and bilberry picking, it was very fun. Mr and Mrs. Robson made us do a few jobs around the house like making the beds etc. but not a lot. I loved living in the countryside, the winters were one of the best parts, we used to go sledging and swim in the rivers. We used to wonder around with not a care in the world, having so much fun. Mrs. Robson introduced us to Dickmen鈥檚 pies. Every lunch time after school Mrs. Robson used to send us round to get a Dickmen鈥檚 pie and I got so sick of them every day.

I didn鈥檛 see my mother for three and a half years, because she couldn鈥檛 afford the train ticket because she was a widow. My father died when I was four years old.

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