大象传媒

East London, September 1940. I was nearly 12 years old, and my brother Gordon was 8. My mother through her tears had just waved us goodbye with a list of do鈥檚 and don鈥檛s. The most important things were that we had to go to church on Sunday, and we were not to be separated. If we could not stay together then we would have to come home again. Mr Larkin was the billeting officer and also a schoolteacher, and he may have known where we were going but none of us did. Rumours were that it was somewhere in Buckinghamshire.

We reached Euston station, with gasmasks on our shoulders; names pinned on our jackets and a few clothes in a pillowcase. Some kids were already crying for their mums, and others had already lost their sandwiches. We all pushed on to the train trying to get to the window seats.

After a journey, which seemed like hours we arrived at a school in Rugby. There were lots of ladies waiting there, talking with funny accents. They had first choice of who they wanted, and the rest of us went on to a little village in Leicestershire called Ashby Magna. We were taken to the school where another lots of ladies were waiting for us.

I will take her someone said pointing at me, 鈥渕y mother said that if you take me my brother has to come as well鈥�. I can鈥檛 do that she replied I either want two boys or two girls. It reminded me of a cattle market.

Soon everyone had gone except Mr Larkin and us, I was still protesting, and he was saying, 鈥� I don鈥檛 know what to do with you two鈥�. Suddenly a lady appeared and said I will take them, but they will have to sleep in the same bed as I don鈥檛 have anything else, that鈥檚 alright I said, thinking we haven鈥檛 slept in a bed for months anyway, so that鈥檚 no problem.

That night it seemed strange to get into bed, it was so quiet. I thought about my dad lying on the concrete floor of the air-raid shelter, and like so many more, having to get up the next morning and go to work. I thought how we used to queue up each evening to get into the shelter in the park, because it was not so noisy as the shelter in the back garden. When the bombs and the guns started going off, the gramophone was turned up as loud as it would go and everyone started singing. The ground would rock and shake with the force of all the explosions going on around us. All night long people would come in who had been 鈥� Bombed Out 鈥�; some had relatives and friends killed or injured. The schools had been made into refugee centres for them, so we were unable go to school.

I said to my brother that we must write to Mum and Dad in the morning and let them know were we are. I must have dozed off, I woke with a start and ran downstairs shouting 鈥渢he bombs are coming the bombs are coming.鈥� I suddenly realised where we were, and the noise turned out to be a train coming into the station in the distance.

The lady who looked after us was a milkmaid, she worked all day and would not let us into the house until she got home from work at 6pm, so after school we had to wait outside. One evening I got in through the kitchen window and helped Gordon and myself to her cakes. We got into trouble for that and we were reported to Mr Larkin. I wrote my Mum a letter saying that we wanted to come home, but it was found in my pocket, we were in more trouble with Mr Larkin who was not very pleased. A few days later she told us her relatives in Coventry had been 鈥淏ombed Out鈥� and she must look after her own first. We were on the move once more; Mr Larkin found a place eventually for us on a farm.

The farmer and his wife were going to get a land girl but agreed to take us instead, once again there was only one bed. He said we would have to help out a bit on the farm, and he was right, especially me. When we got home from school it was 鈥渇etch water from pump luv,鈥� 鈥渢ake bike and go and get cows from field鈥� they did not need a land girl they had me. When you have finished you can have your dinner, which usually turned out to be dried up mashed potato, with a bit of gravy on top.

The farmer had two children, a boy of 4 called Brian who was backward and a daughter of 17 who worked in a bank in Leicester; it was also my job to look after Brian. They did not get a meat ration because he killed one of his own pigs and that had to last for 6 months, so we only got meat once a week. That was the only day of the week that we would all sit at the table to eat together. The farmer would sit at the table with cow dung all over his boots and Brian would sit in a high chair with a potty underneath doing a 鈥渃orky鈥� as his mother called it. We got used to the fat pork and the smells after a while. Most of the time we seemed to be hungry, but next door there was another farm that had big sacks of factory reject biscuits that were labelled as unfit for human consumption, they were meant for the pigs. We would eat some of them, and couple of pints of milk would also go missing every day. If I found any eggs, they would get boiled up in a cocoa tin in the fields.

I quite enjoyed some of the jobs on the farm although it took a long time to get over being afraid of the cows. The worst job on the farm was cleaning out the cowsheds on a Saturday morning. Once I had to drive some sheep for about five miles, it was freezing cold and one of the sheep jumped over a hedge into another field, the next thing was that the whole lot of them jumped over as well, they all got mixed up with another lot of sheep, the two farmers were hours sorting out who belonged to who.

We got up to all kinds of things, and the farmer must have got fed up with us. Once I climbed on to the back of a big Shire horse, the poor thing wasn鈥檛 used to that and it went mad. It galloped of around the field with me hanging on to its mane for dear life, the harder I pulled the faster the horse ran, there was great clods of earth flying around. I was shouting to about half a dozen kids who were watching to go and get the farmer I can鈥檛 get off. It took the farmer a long time to calm the horse down and I must have been on its back for at least half an hour.

Another time, we went with the farmer to market and sat on the haystacks on the trailer of his old ford car, he told us not to jump about but we did. We got into the middle of Leicester and went crashing of into the road with all the haystacks on top of us, the farmer just kept going, he did not realise we had fallen off. Gordon started to cry, and a policeman came along and picked us and the hay up. We had to sit by the road while he sent a police car after the farmer to stop him. We stayed on the farm for about nine months and I got quite used to way of life.

My parents in the meantime had moved to Bridport in Dorset, where they originally came from, as my father had got a job in Portland naval base, repairing and maintaining the ships, he was a carpenter.

In June 1941 they sent for us to come home. We had a terrible journey from the Midlands back to Dorset on our own with many changes of trains, we had forgotten our sandwiches and had no money. I shall never forget the kindness of a soldier on the train, who when going through Somerset gave us some of his food and enough money to buy a bottle of lemonade. He told us about the reeds and willows, and how baskets were made

Our parents were so pleased to see us when we eventually got to Bridport and I shall always remember my mum saying she was never worried about us as she knew we would be able to look after ourselves, I never did tell her all we got up to. It seemed such along time since we had left London as evacuees.

MARIE METER

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