´óÏó´«Ã½

In 1940 at the ripe old of six and a bit, I was evacuated to Cornwall, I stayed with a family called Mr and Mrs Udy. They lived in a little village called MELIDOR, near St. Stevens. I stayed with them for about a year. In that time my Mum and sister came down from London to work, so my Mum could be near me. Then my Mum got another job in a big house called Trewithen, on the Granpound Road, so I went to live with a game-keeper and his wife. They were called Mr. and Mrs. Prince.

I wasn’t there very long, when my Mum, sister and I came back to London. Before I was evacuated the police used to come around blowing their whistles, when there was an air-raid. But now there was another sound. Mum said it was a siren. It seemed to be forever going off, sometimes we hid by the stairs and sometimes if we were out we would go into an underground shelter. We lived in Forest Gate until I was nine, then we moved to Stratford in East London, about five miles up the road. I then went to stay with my sister-in-law to be with her and her family in Yorkshire. I don’t remember how long I was there, but they found I was too brainy for their small school, so they put me in the senior school, where I wasn’t brainy enough. As they had no school for me to go to, so I didn’t go to school at all. But I was friendly with the local children. One day, there was this awful sound. It was a plane, flying very low, its engine making a ‘pop-pop’ sound. It flew over the gardens, then there was a big bang as it landed in a field just a little way away from the houses. We all rushed to see. There were lots of policemen standing there and some soldiers with guns, they were all holding us back. It was a crashed plane and there was the pilot, who was wearing brown close fitting headgear and leather jacket. I remember his black boots. He climbed out of the plane with a cross on it and walked towards us, but before he’d reached the Policeman he suddenly fell down. The policeman went over to him, then they shouted that he was dead. I felt very sorry for him. Next day, us kids went back to the field, I got a lovely piece of the window of the plane, it was called Perspex. It was so thick.

After that I came back to London and stayed there for the rest of the war. Doodlebugs and V2s. But you know kids weren’t frightened, although there were some frightening things happening around.

By Marie-Louise Sceats, nee Gebbett.

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