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TALES OF AN EVACUEE

At the age of 8 years my husband joined the band of evacuees from a council estate in Merseyside into the middle of the Welsh countryside where no English was spoken.
The first place he was billeted turned out to be the home of a sheep rustler. The old farmer would take him out on dark nights into the fields and opening up the back of his lorry would say ‘ Now ‘boyo’ round up those sheep into the back as fast as you can’
On coming to visit her little boy, Ray’s Mum was horrified to hear of what her little lad was being led into, and insisted on him being transferred to another place.
The second billet was in a small village ,Cemaes, on the banks of the river Dovey, with a family who spoke only Welsh. As the only English speaking boy there he was very home-sick, and one night ran to the railway bridge, planning to jump onto the next train home, but the only thing that deterred him was that he wasn’t sure which direction was ’home’!
His tales of life in a Welsh village were very enlightening. Mr Davis like many others, was into a bit of salmon poaching ‘on the side, so again Ray found himself being enlisted, this time to shin up a tree and keep his eyes open for the game-keeper [ Mr Davis’ brother-in-law ] On seeing him Ray was to give a whistle so that he could cover his rod with shingle and ,when brother-in-law came along , he would be sitting innocently smoking his pipe
There was the occasion, when one stormy night, the river was in full flood and next morning they awoke to find that the ‘privy’ had been washed away, and Mr Davis had to row down river to tow it back! Such was life in rural Wales at that time.
When at last the worst of the bombing was over, and Ray’s Mum came to take him home, she was so concerned that he had forgotten his English and was speaking in Welsh, that she took him to a child psychologist!

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