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This story was submitted to the People War’s site by Clare Nelthorpe of CSV Media on behalf of Catherine Ford and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was an evacuee in Devizes in Wiltshire in 1914. We’d come from a Convent in Ilford. I don’t remember the journey, but I remember being at the station, I remember being the last to be chosen, well taken along to Mrs Shepherd’s house. She wasn’t there but she had a lodger, I was pushed in, she didn’t want me but she put up with me.

I was there fore a few months, perhaps as long as 6 months. On a Sunday, I was 6 years old at the time. She pushed me out to go to church, but I knew there were people going to a later mass, so I hung around a place, Caen Hill Gardens, for about two hours, I hadn’t had any breakfast, Mrs Shepherd dragged me back to the house for breakfast. A lady called Mrs Giles had seen me from a window and saw me looking unhappy, she took pity on me and asked the authorities if she could take me in, so for the rest of the time I stayed with her. My sister joined me at Mrs Giles’ when she became five; it was just the two of us. I remember that we used to go to the pub and sit outside and eat biscuits and drink lemonade. Mrs Giles had a son and a daughter, who were alright with us. She had a small house, it must have been three-bedroom. One night I remember I was sleep walking and came down with a pail of water.

We were at the local school, but not mixed with the local children, we had separate teachers, and as evacuees we were about three quarters of the pupils at the school.
I spent two years as an evacuee. It’s strange that neither my sister nor I remember the journey back to Ilford to re-join our mother.

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