大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Liz Andrew of the Lancshomeguard on behalf of Kathleen Greene and added to the site with her permission.

I was nine when the war broke out and I was an evacuee. I was sent from Leeds to Bracebridge in Lincoln. I had a little cardboard box with a gas mask and I left on the train with our schoolteacher.The whole school left because they thought Leeds was going to be badly bombed.

When we arrived it was like a cattle market. I had never been away from home before and I was sitting there on my own because I didn't have any brothers and sisters. The Bracebridge people were choosing the children they wanted " I'll have that one and that one," they said.
A couple called Mr and Mrs French chose me and another little girl. They were probably in their fifties and had no children of their own.

That very night the sirens went and we all had to go down to the shelter in the garden. But the next day the other girl's mum turned up and took her home. I stayed because my parents had a shop and they were trying to encourage other families in the neighbourhood to send their children away. I remember crying at night and it wasn't just me - my mum was crying in Leeds.

But the Frenchs were very nice to me - when I got married they even sent me a wedding present. I remember though that they had their dinner the wrong way round. We started with the pudding - something like spotted dick and custard and followed with the main course. I stayed with them till Christmas. Then I went home. There hadn't been many bombs in Leeds and my mum said I didn't need to go back to Lincoln.

My dad was a grocer and he was not called up because he was in a reserved occupation. After I came home there was quite a lot of bombing. If we were at school when the sirens went we had to shelter in the cellars but if we were on our way home we'd have to run like hell for leather to get home before the bombing started. If there were air raids at night and we were kept up, we'd be allowed to rest our heads on our desks at school the following day!

Half the street seemed to turn up at our house in the Air Raids because we had a beer cellar. We took the dog and the budgie down with us and we thought it was great.We sang and did all sorts of things - For kids it was like having a party. The next day we'd go out and see who had been bombed. We'd collect shrapnel. I was only nine and I thought it was great.

On VE day we took a tram into the centre of Leeds and I remember they turned on the lights outside the Town Hall. The Frenchs came to join us and Dad put all the lights on in the shop window.

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