大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by ^{About links} on behalf of Colin Willis and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

In the Autumn of 1940, I went privately with my mother to Hitchin, Hertfordshire. The local school refused to admit an 鈥榚vacuee鈥� and so I had to join an inner London school, which was unpleasantly different in spirit from the school I was used to.

It was an Elementary School, taking children up to the age of 14 years and it was housed in a building that was not purpose built. All the classes were situated in one big barn-like area. There was open warfare between the staff, who were a nasty lot, and the pupils. A reign of terror existed under which the use of the cane was obvious and often. Therefore inside school pupils behaved fairly well, but when released from the classroom, it was like a cork popping out of a bottle!

I had been taught the Marion Richard style of handwriting, which was pronounced 鈥榖aby-ish鈥� and so I had to learn copper plate. There was a lot of learning by rote.

As I was different, I became a target. One day as I was going home from school, crossing an area of open land called The Butts, I was surrounded by 50-60 boys. One boy, a much better fighter than I was, attacked me and I lashed into him in an unskilled way. My efforts were obviously sufficiently impressive for them to leave me alone after that. I was rather upset however that my friend had run away and had left me to fight the bullies alone.

The Deputy Head was more humane than other members of the staff and invited me to join his after school club. I was able to socialize somewhat under his supervision.

The family with whom we were lodged was not welcoming. They were Evangelical Christians and did not appreciate my joke on the first evening about the 鈥楢dam and Eve鈥� pub, believing that the combination of such a name and establishment was unsuitable. They also had a downer on one of their official evacuees whom they excluded from everything. I insisted on speaking to him, which they did not like. There was no bathroom in the billet. In the barn there was a copper tank from which hot water was transferred into a tin bath where we bathed. Each person was allowed one bath per week.

After eight weeks, when the bombing was less severe, my mother and I returned home to find that whilst we had been away an Austrian boy, Harry Bruck, who had often come to play with me along with a girl from the English family he was staying with, both a little younger than me, had been killed by a bomb.

In September 1941, I joined a Grammar School that had been evacuated to Tunbridge Wells in Kent. I was billeted, with another boy Bill of about my age, to a woman whose husband, a jolly man, was away working as a Telegraph Operator with the Royal Air Force. The woman was miserable, not unkind but not a caring person either. We boys were unreasonably blamed when anything went wrong. I was to spend a year with this lady, but the other boy could not stand it and left after a term.

It was a solitary life. When, twice a week, she spent the day with her parents in the town where we went to school, she would give me some dry lettuce sandwiches and would usually return home to the village about eight in the evening. I had to remain outside, playing alone in the woods. On other evenings, I would sit in the dining room, listening to the news and variety programmes on the radio. The front room was only opened once or twice a year and the furniture was shrouded in sheets. In the Summer, I met school friends from the same village.

Here I learnt to rely upon myself at a young age, as I was given little help with responsibilities such as when to bath, to change clothes, how to find my way about town when we had lessons at different sites and how to budget my pocket money, bus fares and dinner money.

When she became pregnant, my hostess no longer had to keep an evacuee and I was moved to a completely different household of interesting, educated people who had a great influence on my development.

The Liddiards lived in the ground floor flat of a large house. Mr Liddiard had been to university and his wife was a French teacher. Her mother came from Sheffield to stay and told me fascinating stories about her interest in music and about the visiting musicians and performers who would lodge with her when they were appearing in the town.

Another lady of about 60-70 lived there most of the time. She was Mr Liddiard鈥檚 Aunt and rather a pioneer in her way. She travelled to London every day to work in the Citizens Advice Bureau. Now retired, she had reached the highest position that a woman could attain in a public telephone company. She was also a violinist who had belonged to the orchestra, which eventually became the London Symphony Orchestra.

During the week it was a very female household and at weekends Mr Liddiard enjoyed my company. He shared his interest in stamps with me and with the flat came a large dining table, which swivelled over to become a billiard table. We would play billiards together. I was given lots of freedom but there was always a gentle control.

There was a daughter, Edwina, who was two years old when I arrived; eleven years younger than I was. I was an only child and she became like a sister to me.

Although I was very happy to live with them, I still missed my parents and I returned home to see them during the holidays as they lived in a 鈥榥eutral zone鈥�. They were tense and unhappy as the holidays ended, but they never came to see me during term time.

After the war, I visited my host family and attended the same college as Mr Liddiard. I am still in touch with the daughter and went to her mother鈥檚 funeral last year.

In 1944, flying bombs were launched at London and our 鈥榮afe zone鈥� lay in their path. It was decided that we should be evacuated again, repeating something of the process of 1939. We had to pack essential baggage and take ourselves to a station with a demeaning luggage label attached to a lapel. Our destination was kept a secret until we were well on our way. We arrived at Frome, Somerset and were taken to a Church Hall. That evening, the choosing began, it was rather like a cattle market. I liked some of the people but I was not chosen, probably because there had been an outbreak of impetigo and I was covered in scabs. I felt rejected and that night I slept on a mattress in the hall. The process continued the next day and eventually two unmarried ladies took me in. They were very kind, but I was 13 陆 years old then and they were not on my wavelength.

Whilst living with them, I had my fourteenth birthday. Traditionally, this was the age at which boys started wearing long trousers. I returned from holiday with my first pair and the older lady said,鈥漎ou do look sophisticated!鈥� I didn鈥檛 really, as the trousers were crumpled. They pressed them for me but embarrassingly the creases were down the seams, not a normal crease. I remember dashing to the toilets in school the next day to crumple them again, hiding the faulty pressing.

Schooling was never satisfactory as an evacuee. We had to share a local school and make do with halls and huts for only part of the morning. Working on Saturdays sometimes did not plug the gaps in our education.

I liked the surroundings in Somerset and despite always looking forward to the time when we would return home, I travelled on my own to places of interest, such as Bath, Wells, Salisbury. On the day the war ended in Europe, I had an appointment at the London Hospital and I went by train to Paddington Station. I had an optimistic idea the war would soon stop forever and could hardly wait for my next journey home, for good!

When that eventually happened, I had become a private, rather secretive person. My parents reacted sensitively and allowed me a great deal of independence.

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