大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War Site by Durham Clayport Library on behalf of Les Burnley and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.
On Friday 1st September 1939 my two sisters and I were among scores of children evacuated from Holbeck (Leeds) to Gainsborough (Lincolnshire). Our day started at our school in Whitehall Road where we had received instructions on how to behave from the teachers who were travelling with us to Gainsborough, the a bus ride to Leeds railway station where we got on to a train which for the majority of us was the first time in our lives. We arrived at Gainsborough station and were herded into the waiting room where we were each given a carrier bag containing biscuits and a drink, the onto another bus which took us to a council estate on the other side of Gainsborough. At that stage we were formed into groups of about 30 children and placed under the control of Gainsborough teachers who we followed from house to house. The estate had been built about 1930 and looked so clean in comparison to the back to back houses in Holbeck. The gardens were neat and so well kept it looked like another world to us. The teacher leading our group had a list of the names and addresses of the people who had agreed to take in evacuees and when we arrived at those particular houses she stopped us, called out a name and took that evacuee to the house and introduced him/her to the householder. A lot of people preferred girls and my two sisters were among the first to be taken. As we proceeded round the estate my group got smaller and smaller and eventually there was just another boy and me left. I truly believe God was looking down on me that day for my name was called outside the front gate of 32 Lime Tree Avenue which was the home of Mr and Mrs Cole, I was taken to the front door and met Mrs Cole who expressed her disappointment that she was not having a little girl but after being told there were no girls welcomed me into her house. I later met Mr Cole and their two sons Colin(16) and John(23) and right from the beginning they were very kind to me and accepted me as one of their family. After a few days evacuees started attending the various schools in Gainsborough, I started the Parish School. The schools were not big enough to accommodate the large number of evacuees and local children so it was necessary for all children to attend on a part-time basis, mornings for local children and afternoons for Leeds children alternating on a weekly cycle. When we were not at school we were taken on walks in the country and we thought it was great. After a while a lot of evacuees went back to Leeds and we the attended school full time. I made a lot of good friends and settled down in Gainsborough without any problem. I lived there until 1956 when I married a Gainsborough girl and went to live in Scunthorpe. My regret is that Mrs Cole died in 1953 which was just before I met my future wife and passed an important examination which enabled me to be promoted at work. I can look back on seventeen years of happiness as an evacuee in Gainsborough.

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