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This is a transcribed interview with Joan Young. Joan has signed to say that she's happy for this interview to go on the website.

I’m Joan Young. I was born in Liverpool but I live in Wrexham. I was evacuated on the 1st September- war broke out on the 3rd- and I’m still an evacuee, still in Wrexham!

When we got evacuated there had been a lot of talk in the school, but we didn’t know anything about it, until my mum turned round and said ‘You’re going on a long holiday. There’ll be a war, but you shan’t be away too long. You’re going to the country, and you’ll soon be home, the war won’t last long.' So we got everything ready, and we all met at the school, and they put red arm bands around us- little brown labels. We carried our gas masks and what little possessions we had. We all got on the train and we got off at Wrexham, and there were cars waiting — WVS people- who took us to the Majestic Cinema and we thought ‘Oh! We’re going to see a film!’ but apparently it wasn’t. We were all issued with a bag, a tin of corned beef, chocolate and a few more goodies were put into the bag. Then we were taken from there back into the cars, and we were taken to our destinations.
My destination was Gwersyllt, near Wrexham. We got out of the car, but there were six of us- my family- and my mum had stressed that the eldest had to go with the youngest, and we weren’t to be separated- we had to be in twos. So of course we got out in the middle of the avenue- all these people around- saying ‘Well I’ve asked for a little girl’ or ‘I’ve asked for a little boy’- anyway this lady came and said ‘Well my mum has put in for two little girls but she’s not in at the moment’, she said, ‘She’ll be in later on tonight, but we will take them in until she comes’, so that was my sister Sheila and I. We were taken in to the house, and she brought the neighbours children in to introduce us, and we couldn’t understand a word they were saying! Anyway, the lady came back- Mrs Ellison- she took us into the house. We woke up the next morning, and could hear all these strange noises. There were chickens in the garden.. we’d never seen anything like that before. And then she took us round to introduce us to different people. I can remember- I was only 9- and I was too small to reach the tap to have a wash, so I had to use the bath tap.
Anyway, they decided that we’d have a few days off, then they’d sort us out with a school. They got us one class room in the council school, and then they decided we’d go to the Congregational Chapel, because there was more room there, so we had a nun and a priest with us and our own teachers. Some of the children were very.. um.. were cruel- well I don’t say cruel- you know how children are- they’d call us evacuees and all this thing- you know.. but anyway, I made friends with two girls across the road, and they had the same names (as us) one was Joan, and the other was Sheila, and we were good pals. She had to go off to her school, and we had to go to our school. We had our service for Mass on a Sunday at the council school. That eventually stopped because most of the evacuees were going back home. We were still there.

We had to go into Wrexham to St Mary’s Church. We had to walk it every Sunday. There were a couple of local children who were Catholics, and they used to walk it with us. We’d go to Mass, then we’d come out, go to King Street, and we’d always have the bus back. We had to wait about an hour, but it was a treat to come back on the bus after walking all the way there.
The lady that took me in- she was a widow from the first World War. Her husband and her son had been killed and she was left with four children- three daughters and a son- and the son lived with her- a batchelor- my Uncle Frank (we’d called them uncle). He was in the army, but he used to come home on leave. I used to sit there and we used to chat away. My sister went to stay next door because they had a daughter the same age as my sister, and of course, with being family (belonging to the lady I was evacuated with) we were more or less sharing the two houses.
(How did they treat you?) Oh, wonderful. And it was strange though because every so often there used to be a social worker- I think that’s what they call them, I don’t know what they called them then- and she used to come and ask us to go for a walk. And we’d go out for a walk, and she’d ask us- quietly- are you being treated alright? Are you happy? And everything.. which we were. She was a wonderful old lady- strict- but lovely. (and what was her name..) Mrs Ellison. She lived til she was in her 90s. She was wonderful.
I could see all these boys and girls going back home.. I was playing out in the street with my friends and this big posh car pulled up. It was very unusual in those days to see a big posh car- and the nun and the priest- and I think, but I’m not quite sure- I think there was a policeman- got out and my aunty- I used to call her Aunty Maggie- Mrs Ellison- and she called me and my sister and we went in- and they said we’ve got bad news- your parents have been killed, and your eldest brother and sister have been killed. And do you know what? I don’t honestly remember our reactions or- - it just went blank- but funnily enough, we’d guessed- or I’d guessed- earlier on, because at Christmas time Aunty Maggie took us across the road to a party and I thought ‘Aren’t these people wonderful? They’re making such a fuss of us’, and I thought ‘There’s something strange here’. And when we went back home, we went to bed- and I could hear little bits of conversation and I knew that there was something wrong, and it wasn’t until this car came up that I realised then.. It had happened apparently before Christmas but they’d kept it til after Christmas so that it wouldn’t spoil our Christmas. My eldest brother and sister, once they’d turned 14, that was the age to leave school or go to college, so my mum and dad had come to take Rita and Peter home. That left four of us. And apparently, when the bomb dropped, they were in the house and they got killed. If they’d’ve stayed in Wrexham, that wouldn’t have happened- but still..

The four of them.. they got killed, so there were four of us left. Then it was dwindling down, and all these evacuees were going home. Apparently, my mum must have been on a baby when we got evacuated, because she had a baby April 1940 and at the time, the baby had pneumonia, so she was taken to hospital. And while she was in hospital, that’s when the landmine dropped at the top of the street. But we had an uncle, my grandmother’s brother, an old batchelor, living with us, my Uncle Tom. We lived in a four storey house. They had the coal cellars, where you lifted the grid and put the coal down- and I had two little brothers, one was two and the other was three. And while the bombs were coming down, they’d run back and to to my Uncle Tom, and when the land mine did drop, my Uncle Tom had just gathered the two little boys together… And when they came round the next day- apparently my mum was trapped by the gas pipe, and as they were digging out the debris, she was awake—but the wardens were there and they could hear this bang bang, and they lifted up this coal grid, and my Uncle Tom passed out these two little boys- and they got them out and got my uncle out- covered in coal dust and debris and everything- and they were saved. BUT what we didn’t know was- they were put in a home. My baby sister- she got better- and she was put in a home, in a convent. We didn’t know anything about this- where they were or.. we knew they were alive..

My sister Sheila, who’s two years older than me, she’d been trying to find out. But we didn’t have a lot of communication with my mum’s family. My dad was an only child, and his parents had died, but we didn’t have much communication. And then, my brothers next to me- Vincent and Brendan- they went back to Liverpool when they left school to live with an aunty, my mum’s sister. We still stayed in Gwersyllt. Anyway, my aunty said it’s time you came home, so we went, but we never settled. We’d been so long in Gwersyllt, and that was our family, so we came back over, and then I had a letter from my brother to say he’d been investigating what had happened to the boys and he’d found out that the little girl that was adopted- the lady who adopted her had got in touch with my family and said that she’d adopted our little sister, Angela. The welfare officer that worked in Wrexham, that used to come to see us, she was a friend of this person, she was from Manchester, so she’d told the adopted parent all about us. So she decided that she’d like to go to the home to see my two little brothers and take my sister with her. So apparently she went to the home and asked, and apparently they just took to one another like a duck to water. So of course, she started visiting then. Then they moved the boys to Gloucestershire and that’s where they stayed for the duration. Then my brother, Vincent, came up one day and said 'I’m bringing your sister'. And she was 12 years of age when I saw her.(When had you last seen her?)- when she was a little baby in a shawl. Of course, the lady who adopted her sort of adopted us as an extra aunty.. wonderful- cos there is kind people you know?
My brothers stayed in Gloucestershire- one still lives down there, as a matter of fact.
So we all got together. The brother who went to Liverpool to live with my aunty went to New Zealand on a ten pound ticket. The other brothers went to join the army, and when they came out they either went to live with me or my sister, until they got married.
There’s this lovely feeling that we’re all so close. It’s nice. When my sister, the baby of the family, got married, she got married in Wrexham, because that’s where the family were. Wrexham is my home now.
I was 9 years of age when I got evacuated, my sister was 11, my elder brother and sister were older- the ones who got killed. There were six of us got evacuated- and three stayed at home. There were 9 children including the baby, and there’s 7 of us left now. Very happy and very close.

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