大象传媒

My name, at the time Doris Crook, had been given as someone suitable to help evacuate mothers and young children from London on Sunday September 3rd 1939. I was halfway through my college training as a Methodist Deaconess. That morning at 9 a.m. war was declared on the wireless, and shortly afterwards the air raid warning sounded to alert everybody that an air raid could be expected. To everyone鈥檚 relief it was not long before the 鈥渁ll clear鈥� was sounded.

As soon as I could I made my way to Wilton Road School, Dalston, a building with a number of large classrooms where women and children were already sitting at the desks. I was allocated one class and was told that the names and addresses of all in the room had been listed and that they were to stay with me. To make things easier I had decided to wear my deaconess uniform. At the appropriate time I had to lead the mothers and children out to the street where we joined the long line of people who had started to walk to Dalston Railway Station. We made our way through the length of Forest Road and then through Rosebery Place to the station. It was quite a considerable walk particularly for small children. Those of us in charge had strict instructions that we were not under any circumstances to carry any children and I remember feeling very sorry for one lady with two children, one she was carrying and a little boy walking beside her. He had obviously got new shoes on and they were rubbing his feet.

When we reached the station and went inside the barrier there was a long flight of steps down to reach the platform and the lengthy train waiting there. Eventually everybody got in but by now the system was beginning to break down and people were not in the carriages in any order. We set off and travelled at a reasonable speed not stopping at any stations. How far we went I can鈥檛 say, but we finally came to a station where we stopped. It was not possible to say where we were as all stations were without any indication whatsoever. On alighting from the train we came out of the station to the street above where there was a line of buses waiting for us. In theory my class of ladies and children were expected to get on a bus with me, but by this time a number of the ladies had found their friends from other classes and got on a bus with them. The idea was that as soon as a bus was full it could start off, so I moved off with a bus load of ladies most of whom I hadn鈥檛 seen before.

Having gone through a number of streets we drew up beside a school where we were all told to go into the corridor, along to the toilets, and having used them and freshened ourselves up, we were then to go to the other end of the building where the buses would be waiting for us. Of course by that time all were completely mixed up and each bus again took fifty different people. Then the buses proceeded to various parts of the countryside, each eventually finishing up at a village hall.

It should have worked like this. Each driver had been given a list of about fifty people to present to the folk sitting at the table in the village hall, and their job was to allocate the mothers and children to the local addresses they had been given. As you can imagine some of this went fairly smoothly but it took quite a long while to get all settled, particularly as the names on the list did not agree with the passengers on the bus. One difficulty was that a pregnant woman had joined us, but special arrangements had been made before we left London and there should have been no one in this condition with our group.

Eventually I was asked what I was doing. A certain gentleman offered me hospitality, but one of the men at the table was very sure I should not go there, and in the end he arranged for me to stay with him and his wife and two daughters. Next morning directly after breakfast I got a train back to London. The story doesn鈥檛 end there as about two weeks later I received a letter to say that at one home the lady found she had someone who was pregnant and would I do something about it. All I could do was to send the letter to the organisers as I was due back at College at Ilkley, wiser for the experience but not a bit surprised at the muddle of the whole exercise.

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