大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War site by a volunteer from Peacehaven Library and has been added to the site with her permission, she fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

I was evacuated to Lancing from London and the end of September 1939, I was eight years old, being nine in the October.

On arriving in Lancing along with the other London school children, we were put in a hall in North Lancing and each given a bag containing some tins of food and a bar of chocolate. We had to wait for a long time while the local people who had agreen to take us in came to collect us, I was later told that I was chosen because one I was not crying and also because I had red hair !

I was taken by a Mr and Mrs Gardiner who lived in The Hollies, Crabtree Lane and I stayed with them for about six months. They were very kind but were not used to having children around so I then went to stay with Mrs Gardiner's brother and his wife at Third Avenue, Lancing. They also never had any children but I stayed with them until spring 1942 when I went back to London and stayed.

When we first arrived in Lancing we never went to school for almost a year, I then went to the local school which was not far from the station. Several of the classrooms were made into two and we were all crowded in. I learnt a lot about Nature and about Plants and Wildlife, things I would not have done in London, we were often taken out into the Countryside as the classrooms were so full !! Most of us made a lot of friends amonst the local children which helped us to get over the homesickness.

I only saw my Mother three times in three years and my Father only once as he was in the Army. I was an only child so it was very hard to be away from home and living with strangers but I kept in touch with the family until they passed away in 1963.

They came to my wedding and when my daughter was born I took her down to Sussex to see them. We kept in touch by letter and I did visit many times over the years. They always said that if my Parents had been killed during the raids in London they would have addopted me.

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