大象传媒

On June 2nd 1940 I was evacuated from Southend-on-Sea to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire.I was 12 years old and attended Southend High School for Boys.My sister was 10 and went to Derbyshire on the same day.

We were woken at 5.00am by my mother and a special bus was arranged to take us to the Southend station 4 miles away. We left home at 6.15am, and after 2 miles the bus was stopped by an army unit on the road and we had to produce our identity cards. The bus was full with parents and children, but after a lot of grumbling from the soldiers and our parents we again went on our way and gathered at the station.

We said a tearful goodbye to our parents not knowing when we would see them again and left at 830am. We did not know where we were going until we were passing through London when we were told we were going to a mining town called Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, which we had never heard of. It was a very hot day and we arrived in Mansfield at 4.30pm, hot and dishevelled.

We were taken to a church hall with our one small suitcase and gas mask, where we were lined up and our foster parents selected us after inspection. I was very lucky because the people I was billeted with were very kind. 8,000 children were evacuated that day from Southend to towns in the midlands.

We had to write a postcard to our parents to tell them where we were, which took about a week to get home.I did not know where my sister was until about 3 weeks after, when mother sent me a card to tell me she was in Blackwell about 15 miles from me. She eventually also was transferred to Mansfield to another school and we stayed there for nearly 2 years.

I am 76 years old and I still remember that day as if it was yesterday in spite of our life during the wartime bombing and the V1 and V2 weapons in 1944/5.

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