大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Sue Sutton on behalf of Joyce Ireland, the author and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was only 81/2 when I was evacuated from my home in Liverpool, with my brother Gordon (aged 10 1/2), to Llanfair Wales and we ran away!

We went to this couple in the village and they didn't speak English so we felt out of place, confused and foreign. We managed to stay with them for one week in their small cottage. Gordon and I had to sleep together which we weren't used to. I didn't get on with my brother - he was too bossy and I was very shy so it was a very difficult situation. In the middle of the night, one week after we had arrived he suggested we run away to go home - he said 'come on we're going' and I got up straight away and we sneaked out after the couple had gone to bed. It was very dark, due to the blackout, and I felt very scared. I'd no idea where I was going. We went across the Memai Bridge to Bangor without anyone seeing us. Unfortunately, just after the bridge we were spotted by a policeman who asked us where we were going and my brother said we were going home to Liverpool. He said 'you'd better come with me' and took us to the police station and asked us the address of where we'd come from. but we didn't know! My brother gave him my granmother's address in Liverpool, because my mother was gone away in the NAFFI and my father was in the army, so our home had been given up. So they made us sleep at the police station for the night and gave us something to eat. The following day we had breakfast and they drove us to grandma's, who was very pleased to see us.

However, we couldn't stay there as Nanny lived too close to the docks, so mother was contacted and she came back and took us to a friend in Southport while she looked for somewhere for us to be evacuated to (ours was a private evacuation) and she found a wounderful lady called Bella Sumner. But she was only able to take me not my brother who went back to Nanny's. I was very resentful about this as it split the family. I stayed with Bella for 51/2 year and kept in touch with hew until 1958 when she passed away. She was extremely kind to me and I was very happy there. Bella re-married when I was there as she had been widowed before the war. Bob Rimmer was a lovely man with adult sons. He was a builder, but of course Bella didn't work. Unfortunatly my family was never close again.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.