大象传媒

My sister and I were evacuated from our school in London in June 1940.
After a very long day on a train crowded with hundreds of children we arrived
at a small village in Cornwall called St.Erth.
I was nearly six years old and my sister was seven. >>
>> On arrival some of us children were taken to the village hall where the
villagers who had offered to take us in were waiting.
We were taken in by a Mr and Mrs Richards of Lower Porthcolumb Farm which was about two and a half miles out of the village. It must have been very difficult for them as they had never had any children of their own and were middle aged.
It was a working farm with cows, pigs, chickens and a very big bull.!
There were lots of different crops grown also vegetables and feed for the animals.
Mr Richards did not have any mechanical equipment at all at first, the plough was pulled by a very big shire horse called Albert there was a younger horse also called Prince.
Being from the city, we had never seen animals so close up before if at
all so they seemed quite frightening to begin with.
The farm house had no running water so that had to be drawn from the well daily there was no electric or inside plumbing, the chemical toilet was in an outbuilding on the side of the house. No toilet paper just squares of newspaper hung on a nail with a piece of string.
Oil lamps were the only lighting they had, with a candle to light up the way to our bedroom, which often blew out and left us in pitch darkness.
>> We attended the village school and to begin with Mr Richards took us down
to the village in the pony and trap as it was a long way for us to walk. Then as we got more used to walking and the countryside we walked up the lanes and through the fields climbing over stiles and gates on our own.
>> We learned a lot about the countryside and the wildlife.
Our time in Cornwall was a very happy time and we were some of the lucky ones to be looked after by such good people as a lot of other evacuees had some unhappy experiences.
>>
We stayed on the farm for about two and a half years and then our parents wanted us to go back to London as they missed us so much.
>>We experienced some of the awful bombing and sleeping in the air raid shelter. The sirens and the noise of the bombs exploding and the guns is something that I will never forget.
>> We saw the Doodlebugs in the skies and waited for the engine to cut out and then watch them hurtle downwards, you felt the ground shudder as they exploded.
>> When the V2 Rockets started to come over our parents asked Mr and Mrs Richards if we could go back to them and they readily agreed to have us. We loved our time with them and loved to be in the fields working
alongside the farmhands, we were never made to work but we just wanted to.
>> We picked up potatoes, planted cabbages and then cut them when they were fully grown. If the cabbage lorry came in time the next morning we got a ride to school sitting among the sacks of cabbages.
>> We stooked the sheaves of corn during the harvesting running behind the
>> bailing machine, chased the rabbits as they ran from the cornfield. Picked blackberries and primroses - what happy days they were.!!
>> We stayed until the end of the war in Japan and then went back to London.
>> We kept in touch with the Richards and in our teens spent a couple of holidays with them.
>> I also took my husband and two children to meet them when we were on holiday in St Ives, they made us so welcome.
>>
>> When Mr Richards died he left my sister and I a small legacy.
>> We also learned much later that had our parents been killed during the bombing they had signed papers for us to be adopted by Mr and Mrs Richards.
>>
>> In later years I have visited the school on two occasions and been taken on a tour by the Headmaster it was lovely to see it exactly as I had remembered it.
>>
>> Maybe I will visit it again one day.!
>>
>> Doreen Darke

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