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Evacuated to Smalley, Derbyshire
Shirley and Audrey Lloyd were evacuated from Chalkwell School, Southend-on-Sea to Smalley, Derbyshire, in 1940. Here are their recollections:

AUDREY RECALLS:
I am a grandmother, living in Canada now, but was a little girl in England during World War Two, much of which is a blank, but I do remember very vividly the day we were bussed from our school to the railway station to be taken to a safer area in the north.
My understanding of why our area was so unsafe and received so much bombing, was that the German planes were aiming to fly across the English Channel and get to the docks and big railway yards in London. However, if the big guns in the south (I think they were called ack-ack guns) were successful in driving them back before they reached their targets, they turned back and, in order to escape faster, they dropped their bombs quickly wherever they happened to be — which, unfortunately for the innocent civilians below them, was directly onto non-military areas, namely our communities.
The morning we left was quite exciting for me as we were put into buses outside our school, in the charge of our teachers.
My class was on the upper deck, which was a treat for me, because our mother never allowed us to travel up there, with the smokers. I remember a kerfuffle because Shirley was up there with me, which threw the head count off and Shirley's teacher had 'lost' her. But I had had it drummed into my head by Mom, that on no account was I to let go of my sister's hand and I meant to carry out that instruction!
I remember each child was only allowed one suitcase and Mom had sewn two little backpacks for us, as extras. In each of those packs was a thin brown paper and string wrapped parcel, which she told us was not to be opened until 6pm (I drove the teacher crazy asking if it was 6 o'clock yet). This was a smart move on our mother's part, as by the time we opened them, we had been fed cocoa and buns by nice ladies in a school hall and were all sitting around, being looked over by 'prospective parents'. Shirley and I looked fairly presentable and were at least sitting quietly, colouring in our new colouring books with our three crayons each.
Others were not as presentable —some poor little souls had been sick on the train and others had runny noses and were crying for their mothers.
Shirley remembers more than me of the actual billet we were in (or should I say billets), but says she remembers little of the actual day we were evacuated. The memory of all the women, some with younger children and babies, all waving and crying as the buses pulled away, is indelibly imprinted on my mind. There were very few men there of course, just some grandfathers.

SHIRLEY RECALLS:
My earliest recollection is sitting in the school hall at Smalley, Derbyshire, and waiting to be "chosen" and the humiliation of being looked over. I was six years old and my sister, Audrey, was eight.
We were eventually taken in by a family by the name of Duckworth - I think they were a large family and the father was a coal miner. They were very kind of us and I think also took in my mother when she came to Derbyshire after her home was bombed.
But we never stayed anywhere long and lived all over the place; the three of us were split up for reasons I am not aware of and it was 1947 before we all lived together again. I can still drive around the area and my memory is triggered when I see a place and remember that I lived there at some point.
One place I stayed at during a winter had a difficult handle on the back door and if I couldn't open it myself I had to stand outside until the husband came home from work. It was also at this house that I had to eat all my meals standing up as there were only two chairs at the table - the others were upstairs.
Some billets were okay, but the children of the homes were very unkind to us.
One house was very, very large and they had a maid! But I had to eat all my meals in the kitchen with the 'staff'.
We went to so many different schools and stayed in numerous houses, some for only a few days. When my mother came up from Southend I think the authorities washed their hands of us and left it to her to sort us out, but we didn't live together again until 1947, when I was 14, and we never did manage to reform as a family unit.

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