大象传媒

This story has been submitted by Wendy Young to the peoples war web site, on behalf of Mrs celia Ramplin with her permission and may fully understand the sites terms and conditions

On the 1st September 1939 I was evacuated with my sister Eileen, and two cousins, to a village called Hook Norton, near Bambury in Oxfordshire. We were split up because no one was prepared to take on four children. Three hundred children went to the same village, doubling the population.
My sister and I stayed with Mrs Gorton who was a widow of 63, her youngest son was living at home at the time.They were wonderful to us and Mrs Gorton treated us like daughters.The three years that I spent there were the happiest years of my life. Once a month someone from the village organised a coach to bring the relatives who wanted to see their children. I would meet my mother on the village green.
Because there were so many children. there were too many for the school, so classes were set up in the Methodist and Baptist church halls and the village hall.
I had to leave the school when I was fourteen, the headmistress from my previous school got me into a school called The Lister Day Continuation Institute where I learnt Typing, French, and Commerce. I had to leave Mrs Gorton and was billeted with a Mr and Mrs Gardiner who looked after me very well. I felt very lonely as I didnt have any of my family around me, so I went home, and continued to go into school for Typewriting and Shorthand.When I finished there, I got a job working at a subsidery of the Ford Motor Company.
I was eighteen when I joined the Land army and went to a village called Woodham Ferrers where I trained for a month in a dairy. I was transferred to a dairy farm and worked there for six months. Feeling very lonely. I asked to be transferred and went to Hay Breton where I lived in a hostel for Land girls doing field work, and met my future husband there.
After two years i left and went back home to help my mother with my younger brother. We had an Anderson Shelter in the garden, it was situated beside the fence which divided our garden from our neighbours.
One night in 1944, while we were in the shelter, a rocket fell into our neighbours garden killing her.
I would often go back to the village where I had been so happy to stay with Mrs Gorton and her family.

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