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It was 1940, I was seven and Germany had just started to drop bombs on Birmingham. My Grandad’s house had an unlucky hit in Braithwaite Road, Sparkbrook and he and his children had to come to live with us. That put us overcrowded so when the evacuation came in, Mom and Dad decided to evacuate me and Bob. The three children who came with Grandad were Bob Olph Jean, so Bob had to come with me. So there was me and Bob and most of the children from Yardley Wood. Outside Yardley Wood School with our gas masks and name tags pinned to our coats waiting for the sharabang to come. Yes you read it right — they are coaches today.

When me and Bob got to Burton-on-Trent we were sent to a Mr and Mrs Right — it’s funny how you can still remember names after all these years. They had two daughters, I don’t know their names but from day one they made my life a misery. If I was to go into detail of all the things those two girls did to me I would need ten pages of blank paper. They were about two years older than me. They left Bob alone. He was a big lad for his age maybe that’s why.

In the 1940’s the toilet used to be down the garden — OK in summer, not so good in winter. Anyway Mr and Mrs Right’s toilet was down the garden. Those two girls used to wait until I’d been in the toilet about five minutes, then they would kick the door open and stand there laughing at me and when we were going to school, one of them would kick my ankle from behind. I would fall over and they would laugh and run away. No help off Bob. I stuck it for two months but I’d had enough and wrote to Dad to come and see me. When he came, I told him what had happened to me and that Bob had been no help to me. I told him I wanted to go home or I would run away. Dad said he would come the next week and bring me home. I cannot tell you how happy I was that week. It’s funny but those devils left me alone that week. Dad came with Mom on the Saturday and I was back home by Saturday afternoon. It was great to be home. The only thing was Mom and Dad had to make me a bed under the stairs but did not care. I would have slept on the kitchen floor. I never seen Bob again. Even to this day, my Grandad soon left and Jean Olpa joined the airforce and became one of few. I must be honest and say I do not know what happen to him Bob and Jean. Well that’s my story. I hope you like it.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Joanne Brown a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of Ronald Mewis and has been added to the site with his permission. Ronald Mewis fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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