大象传媒

This story was shared with and entered by a 大象传媒 Essex Action Desk volunteer.

My brother and I were evacuated with our school in 1944; I was nearly seven and my brother, five. We all had a medical, unfortunately my brother and I were going down with Chicken Pox, and nobody wanted children with Chicken Pox in their house, so we were sent to hospital. I was in a ward on my own and so was my brother, whom I could see through a little window. We had one toy each, my brother had a Teddy, me a rag doll which had a hole in the bottom of her foot. I used to pull the pieces of material out because I found them interesting. Imagine to-day, sending a child to hospital with one toy, no Mum and Dad or anyone they know to come and see them.

We were enventually sent to Gawsworth, a little village near Macclesfield - we were in different homes. My brother was made to go into the woods before school to collect firewood, at five years old!! I went to a house where, unfortunately I wet the bed, I must have been so upset at the time. The lady had put me in a cot with prickly blankets - I remember thinking she won't notice because there are no sheets. I felt very lonely and frightened. She obviously did notice because I was sent to a children's home then to another family.

This family had a big influence on my life. They were Mr and Mrs Fairhurst who had two children, Pat eight years and John six years. They had seven acres of land and a well in a field from which they pumped water to the house. When the pump froze we would bring in the snow and melt it in front of the fire. They had an earth toilet in the garden, no electricity upstairs, candles in the bedrooms. What a wonderful life I had. I remember walking to school with newspaper tied round my legs when there was deep snow; the little school; the cow coming into the playground, the cornfields, playing hide and seek in the corn stalks, playing in the woods next to the house, when the pigs got loose, the earthquake, the plane crashing and the pilot on his parachute.

I don't suppose I had ever seen cornfields or pigs befxore. I was seeing all this beautiful countryside through the eyes of a little girl coming from a council house in Dagenham, Essex. My Mum already had five children, little did I know she was going to have another eight, which I helped look after.

Gawsworth is so special to me. This year, 2005, I revisited it and traced the little girl, Pat. Sadly, her mother, father and brother have died. Pat and I have laughed and cried together many times. She told me so many things particularly how her family made a fuss of me. What a different life I had - "Beautiful Gawsworth, Special then and Special now".

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