大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jan Bedford of Kent County Council Maidstone Library on behalf of Shirley Regal and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

大象传媒 People鈥檚 War 鈥� Staplehurst Library Monday 7th June 2004

Mrs Shirley Regal

On September the first I was one of the evacuees. I was evacuated first of all to Brighton of all places. I always remember walking along to the station, all being given a carrier bag which contained a bar of chocolate, Cadburys, a bar of soap, Knight鈥檚 Castille, and Libby鈥檚 corned beef. We were all put into trains and I had a young sister and tried to look after her.

We got to Brighton and we went to this big building, I suppose it was a village hall and they tried to keep families together, but I was older than my sister, she was just 5 years old and they wouldn鈥檛 let me stay with her. I went to one billet and my sister went to another billet, but fortunately in Brighton we were very well looked after.

Unfortunately the place was bombed, so our parents brought us back to London, but then we were evacuated again, we went to Old Warden, there was an airfield there, in fact it鈥檚 still there, they do flying there now. We went to the Shuttleworth Estate, there we were treated completely differently. I was billeted with the gamekeeper and his wife, they never had any children. By that time my younger brother had come with us, there were the 3 of us, myself, my brother and sister, who were twins. The first thing they did was take all our clothes away from us, and we were given other clothes to wear.

I remember going to school there and we looked up in the sky and the Battle of Britain was carrying on. And we all went into the classroom, which was very funny, because in the morning, local children were taught in school, in the afternoon it was the evacuees. When we came home from school we had to go through a forest on the estate. The first thing I can remember was my younger brother picking up a canteen that the soldiers had left. Oh we were very proud of it, we took it along to the local department and they were very pleased, and they gave us a half a crown.

Then they separated us as the lady couldn鈥檛 cope with 3 children, my sister and I went on to another farm and our job there was to pick watercress. While we were there picking watercress unfortunately we picked up other things. Mum and Dad came down and we were literally covered in fleas. First thing mum had to do was literally strip us down, put ointment on us, and we came home and she said, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e not being evacuated again鈥�. But unfortunately we were.

We went to Yorkshire, it was completely different. I had my own maid, butler oh yes. I wasn鈥檛 allowed to pick anything up, if I dropped something I wasn鈥檛 allowed to pick it up. I had to ring a bell and get somebody to pick it up for me, consequently I liked dropping things. It was very funny.

Mum was able to come there because my father was in the AFS, so she was able to come and stay with us, we were allotted a little house. My father was a master tailor and he used to make clothes for Simpson鈥檚 of Piccadilly. Mum was given all the off cuts and she had an outfit made out of all these off cuts and one of the ladies in the village accused mum of stealing her suit because it was made of the same fabric as the lady of the house. She had come up to London to have a suit made and unfortunately it was in the same fabric as mum had. There was a great to-do about that.

Oh I remember the place, it was called Hardcastle Crags, Hebden Bridge. And it was beautiful, I always thought the north of England was drab, but it was beautiful, the Pennine Chain it was lovely. Hebden Bridge was beautiful with running water, really lovely.

Then Dad must have got lonely because we all went home, stayed there for a while and then we went to Manchester and we stayed there for the rest of the year. There were 3 of us and we all went into 3 different billets. My brother and sister were twins but they couldn鈥檛 cope with twins. My sister and I went to very religious people unfortunately, so much so that we had to change our clothes in the morning, change our clothes in the afternoon. I was a little devil, Mum had sent me some ribbons to tie in our hair and I put the ribbons in my sister鈥檚 hair. Sadly they were the same kind of ribbons as a little girl down the road was wearing and they didn鈥檛 think evacuees should have such nice ribbons, and I was sent to bed for being insubordinate.

Derek my young brother was in a place and he really fell on his feet. He
was billeted with a butcher. They couldn鈥檛 do enough for him, in fact they wanted to adopt him, but mum wouldn鈥檛 have it. Then we came back and that was the end of the war for us.

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