大象传媒

JOAN PHILIPS AS AN EVACUEE FROM SEPTEMBER 3RD 1939 TO MAY 1940

Hello Children

I want to tell you a little story about when I was evacuated.

My name is Joan Philips and I am 9陆 years old and going to Lister Street School.
On Sunday September 3rd 1939 I was sitting on the settee with my Mam and Dad listening to the radio, the Prime Minister came on to tell us that England was at war with Germany. Now before this I had asked my Mam if I could be evacuated with our Olive who was 6陆 years old and she said Yes, because it meant you went on holiday with your school friends and Teacher.

On the Friday I got all dressed up in my new cloths. Coat, Beret and strappy shoes. My Mam packed my case and put my gas mask case over my shoulder, fastened a brown label to my coat, which had my name and school written on.

We set off for the railway station and met all our school friends and teachers, it was exciting because you had to be rich to go on holiday, so not many people went.

The train set off and we were all excited and talking all the time, wondering where we were going.
At last the train stopped and we all got out and got into coaches, which took us to a big hall, where we shouted our names out then you went to your teacher in the corner of the room. As we were all leaving we were given 2 carriers of food to give to the landlady whose house we were going to live in.
Our Olive and myself went to a caf茅 in Sandsend, the lady was called Mrs Puckering, she gave use a drink of orange and said we should a big cream cake, which was lovely.

I had my own bedroom but our Olive had two beds in her room. She had one and another girl called Joan Rumble from our school slept in the other bed. Over the road from the caf茅 was the beach and after a rough sea Mrs Puckering used to take us on the beach to collect driftwood for the fire, we loved doing that because it was new to use.

Our school was 1陆 miles away up a steep hill and sometimes this lady who had a three wheeler car used to give 6 of use a lift to school. We all used to wonder how the car got us all up the banks with all our weight. It was just a small village school and we had 2 classes in the hall. One class facing one way and the other facing the other way.

I sat on the back row and like 2 of the boys who were 11 years old.

On a Sunday we used to get a lift to Church in the milk float pulled by horses who used to pass wind all the time and as I sat behind his bum I was nearly like a Chinese lady by time I reached the church.

We had such a lot of fun playing on the sledge when it was snowing. The little stream over the road used to freeze in the winter and this special day we decided to take the sledge on the stream and we sat on and suddenly the ice started to crack and before we could get off we all went through the ice and got all wet, it was a good job that the water was only shallow.

On a Saturday we used to get our pocket money, which was 6d, but today that would be about 25 new pence, and off we went to go to the shop. We got 6 fruit drops and a liquorice for our money. After we would sit in the garden and take our sweats out of the packet and put them in a line. That was a sweet a day and liquorice for Sunday, but you know what little girls are like, we would eat Mondays sweet and then Tuesdays and every other day and in about an hour would eat them all, then we would have to wait another week for our next pocket money.

Some Saturdays we would go the Whitby on the bus and have a look around the shops. At Christmas I had some nail varnish and I wrote to Santa asking him for a new dress because I
Had a new brown velvet dress, but I didn鈥檛 like it at all.

At Christmas we went to a party at Mulgrave Castle that had a real Marchioness living there. She was a very old lady and when she had super, she had 12different foods and after every course there was a little bell rang.

After we had lived at he caf茅 with Mrs Puckering for about 8 months her husband had an accident and we had to go to Mulgrave Castle to live.

We didn鈥檛 like it there you had to get in the bath with someone else. Our Olive and me used to get in together, then on Sunday we used to go to the teachers bedroom and have a cocoa and a piece of toast for our supper.

The snow use to be very thick in the winter and one of the little boys was hanging over the wall and suddenly fell over into the snow, the teacher had to go around the wall and dig him out.

When we lived at the castle it was very cold and we didn鈥檛 like it, after about six weeks we came home.

Our Mum used to visit us every month when we were away and used to bring all sorts of sweets.

While we were at Sandsend a ship鈥檚 mine washed up on the beach and blew the windows out of the hotel and blew two boys out of bed in their house, all had a good laugh. We had to go to bed as soon as the 7.30 train went passed, if the train didn鈥檛 go passed we would stop up till 8pm.

Mrs Puckering had a lovely fur coat with big fur buttons in and I used to wear that for a dressing gown while we waited for the train to pass.

Altogether we enjoyed our time being an evacuee and it was a lot of fun. It was all new living in a caf茅 and then a real castle, but loved our home best.

This is the end of my story. I hope you enjoyed getting to know a little of the past.

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