大象传媒

EVACUATION
Some Notes by an Ex-evacuee

About a month before my tenth birthday Britain declared war on Germany. Although I did not know anything about it at the time, our Government had known that this might happen for some time and had put together some plans to protect the civilian population in the cities from attack by enemy aircraft.

These plans were based on two main fears; firstly they expected that German aircraft would bomb our cities (as they had dropped bombs on cities in Spain during the Spanish civil war) and, secondly, that the Germans might drop poisonous gas on us (as they had used poison gas against our soldiers during the first World War in 1916). So, among the preparations the Government were able to make, in the short time they had, there were two that affected me. I was issued with a gas mask and I was given the chance to be 鈥榚vacuated鈥�.

At ten years old the gas mask was a bit of a laugh, it made you look like a pig with a black snout and (if you knew how to do it!) would make rude noises when your breath escaped between the rubber face piece and your cheeks. However, 鈥榚vacuation鈥� was something more complicated.

All I understood was that I might be 鈥渟ent away to be safe鈥�.

I was living in London with my parents and they were told that London would, almost certainly, be bombed by the Germans and that anyone who could go away to the countryside should do so. My father was in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and expected to be called-up at any time, and my mother was a qualified nurse who would be needed in London if it was bombed, I didn鈥檛 have any brothers or sisters so it was just me that could be 鈥渟ent away to be safe鈥�, or 鈥渆vacuated鈥�.

I don鈥檛 remember this worrying me then; it was all a bit of excitement, most of the others in my class at school were going to do the same and it hadn鈥檛 really sunk in that I was going to be separated from my Mum and Dad for an unknown period of time.

Looking back on those days, now, I realise what an incredible job was done by the authorities that organised the evacuation of children from the dangerous city areas. Somehow they managed to match groups of children who wanted to go to the countryside with those families who were willing to take them in. In my case (which I assume was typical) it was done on a 鈥榮chool鈥� basis. That is to say, my school told someone how many of their children and teachers (and sometimes parents) were looking for a safe place to go.

Complimenting this, organizations in the countryside such as local authorities, the Women鈥檚 Institute, church groups, the Women鈥檚 Voluntary Service etc. must have gone around knocking on doors to find out who would be prepared to take total strangers into their homes for an unknown period of time. Not only if they would take some, but also how many, boys, girls, children, adults 鈥攐r any combination.

At the time war was declared, this matching of evacuees with suitable destinations was not finally completed because, among other things, transport had to be organised. What this meant to me, and all the other children in my class, was that we went to school every day for about two weeks not knowing if this was the day we would not be going home. Each day we went to school with a luggage label (with our name, school and other details written on it) tied to our coat buttons in case we got lost, a small suitcase with our essentials, a packed lunch, our gas mask and a pre-addressed, stamped, postcard to send to our parents telling them where we had finally arrived.

For a week or so we just came home every day as normal but, one day, our parents didn鈥檛 hear the doorbell after school; because that morning after we had started lessons there had been a great commotion; some coaches had arrived in the playground ! Our teachers said 鈥渉ere we go! close your books, pick up your cases and line up outside鈥�. -My big adventure had started.

Some mothers who lived near the school (mine was not one of them) had seen the coaches arrive, or had been told by other mothers, and they came rushing into the playground to say a last goodbye to their children as we were being counted, checked against lists and loaded onto the coaches. Of course it was a very sad time for them and there were many tears, inside the coaches and on the pavement outside, when we finally set off. We were taken to Kings Cross station where special trains had been organized to take us to our new homes and the 鈥渇oster parents鈥� who had so kindly agreed to take us in.

I don鈥檛 think anyone knew, yet, exactly where we were being taken; I know that nobody could tell the mothers in the playground when we got into the coaches. By the time we all piled onto the train (and this was the first time some of the children had been on a real, big, steam powered, train) most of the tears had been wiped away and a kind of holiday feeling developed, with much running along the corridors, laughter and shouting. We ate our packed lunches on the train and stared out of the windows as it stopped and started for no apparent reason(1) every few miles until we got to a station called 鈥淵axley and Farcet鈥�, which turned out to be the names of two villages, way out in the Fens near Peterborough. Here all the children and teachers from my school were taken off the train. (Other groups, from other schools, were also put on the train at Kings Cross but I have no idea whether they got off before or after us).

Buses were waiting for us at the station and we were quickly taken to the Yaxley Village Hall, where lemonade, milk and cakes had been laid out on tables for us by the local Mothers Union (or some such organisation) and then came the sorting out. This, for me, was the worst part of it all. All us children stood in a big group at one end of the hall and the potential 鈥渇oster mothers鈥� stood at the other, then a scary lady in a big hat read from a list and call out things like 鈥淢rs. Smith, -a brother and sister鈥�; Mrs. Smith would then step forward and all the brothers and sisters who wanted to stay together would come to the front of the group. Mrs. Smith then looked them over, as if she was choosing a coat for herself, and say 鈥淭hose two there鈥� and, taking their hands, lead them out of the hall to their new home.

I hated this part of the proceedings and can remember to this day, more than 60 years later, the feeling of unfairness and the shame of not being chosen! As it happened, there were a few more children than had been expected and the local organizers had to go out again to get some extra foster mothers who had said, when first asked, 鈥淲ell, if there any children left over, I suppose I could take one鈥�. I was one of about three left over, and was collected by one of these 鈥榬eserve鈥� foster mothers.

However, in the end, I could not have chosen a better foster family myself; and the system I hated so much, being lined up like cattle and picked out on the basis of what we looked like, worked in my favour in one respect because among the first foster mothers to choose were the farmers wives who were looking for some help on the farm, or around the house, and so they chose the biggest, strongest looking children. My skinny appearance meant that they did not choose me, so I was not placed with someone who thought of me as an extra farmhand or domestic helper.

My foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Amps, were two of the kindest people I have ever known. They had just one son, who was older than me, and he joined the Royal Navy after a couple of years so I suppose, in a way, I filled his place and benefited from his parent鈥檚 love and kindness. I stayed with the Amps for four years until the bombing of London had, more or less, stopped and I could go back and return to school there.

It can probably be imagined what it was like not to come home each day to your real parents, and not know how they were; particularly if you knew that the bombers had been back over London again. I knew that my father was now in the RAF, and I got regular letters from him until he was sent overseas, when the letters came less regularly- and often two or three at a time. My mother wrote regularly too, she was now working as a nurse in a 鈥楩irst Aid Post鈥� in London where people who had been hurt in the bombing were taken to be treated before being sent to a hospital. I knew that the First Aid Post was deep underground in a nearby park, and my mother had said it was the safest place to be in an air raid 鈥攕o I wasn鈥檛 too worried about her safety, and she did survive throughout the war, and so did my father,

Other children were not so lucky.

Of course, as soon as they had received our postcards (which our teachers made sure we filled in and sent off the very next day after we arrived in Yaxley) parents came to the village as soon as they could to see us, and the people who were going to look after us until we could go back home. After a while, and where it was possible, some mothers arranged to stay in the village too. My parents came to see me quite soon, and that was the first time I saw my father in his RAF uniform, -I was very proud of that.

Schooling in the village had to be completely reorganized because there were now twice as many children and teachers but still only the same number of schools. What they did was to put all the evacuees and their teachers into the school buildings from 8.00 in the morning until 1.00 in the afternoon and the village children and their teachers got their schools back from 1.30 until 6.30 in the evening. It was done this way so that the village children could continue to help their parents on the farms in the morning (bringing in the cows for milking, and so on) as before. The big bonus for us evacuees was that we had every afternoon off school!! These afternoons were absolutely magical for me.

60 years ago, life in the country villages and on the farms was very different from what it is now, and the difference between city life and village life seemed much greater to me then than it does now. Nowadays, children will be wearing the same fashions, listening to the same music, taking the same lessons, playing the same games, eating the same food, going on holiday to the same places, and so on, as the boys and girls everywhere else in these islands. It was not so then.

Also, in those days, travel was not so easy, only the better-off families had cars and there was no television. This meant that we children, who lived in the cities, had very little idea of the way in which similar children to us lived in the countryside. After all (for example) now when we see the television news about a celebrity or politician visiting a village school, we see the village, the school and, probably, hear one or two children talking about the event.

That鈥檚 why I said that the 鈥榝ree afternoons鈥� in the village were so magical for me, I was in a new and unknown world to be explored.

In London I had lived with my family in a typical suburban house, which had been built only a few years previously, as did at least half of the other children in my school. When we were taken to our 鈥榥ew鈥� homes in the village there were some surprises in store for us, and I was one who was among the most surprised. The reason why Mrs. Amps (or 鈥淎untie Eva鈥� as I soon called her) had not said that she could take an evacuee when she was first asked was that their little house was so small and very old. As it happened, they were planning to move and, within a short time, we all moved to a bigger and more modern one. But let me tell you about the one I was taken to, on that first day.

It was just one room wide and on the end of a row of three, half-timbered (Tudor?) cottages. The front door opened straight into the 鈥渂est鈥� room, a sort of lounge called 鈥渢he parlour鈥�, and behind it was the kitchen, which was a bigger room with a scrubbed pine table in the middle. This was where we had our meals and washed ourselves in a bowl on the table. The room had a big black kitchen stove with an oven on one side of a coal fire and a hot water boiler on the other. The boiler had a shiny brass tap from which we filled a jug for the washing bowl. We also took our baths in this room, in front of the fire, in a big galvanised steel tub that was taken outside and hung in the back yard when not in use.

Stairs went up from the parlour, just inside the door from the kitchen, straight into the main bedroom, at the back, from which a door led into the front bedroom. All the rooms were tiny by today鈥檚 standards, but the biggest shock of all was that the toilet was out in the back yard, past a barn and a tool shed!! The toilet was what was called an 鈥渆arth closet鈥� and consisted of a wooden seat set over a huge hole in the ground. But we did have electric lighting in the house!

Many of the evacuees had similar surprises but others, who came from little crowded houses in London where they shared a bedroom (and sometimes a bed) with brothers and sisters, found themselves in much more comfortable homes where they had a room to themselves 鈥攁nd sometimes didn鈥檛 like it, and couldn鈥檛 get to sleep!

Mr. Amps (鈥淯ncle Alf鈥� as he became) was a farmer with a smallholding right out in the flat, black, fenlands behind the village which he worked with horse drawn equipment such as a plough, harrow, and so on. He had a beautiful horse and an orange coloured, two wheeled, cart which I loved to ride in when he collected his crops from his fields. After we moved to the bigger house, which had many outbuildings, we also kept pigs and chickens and I was a willing helper when it came to feeding all the animals.

Of course, the war was in progress and it wasn鈥檛 all fun.

Although we had been moved out of London to get us away from the war鈥檚 dangers, the flat open landscape of East Anglia was ideal for airfields and, as time went on, more and more airfields were built around us and they became targets for the German bombers. It was not unusual for bombs to miss the airfields and fall around us -although only one fell on the village, but it didn鈥檛 harm anyone as it (fortunately) fell on the recreation ground! A bigger danger was from the allied bombers, British and American, which were limping home, badly damaged, after being shot up while over their targets. These planes fell out of the sky quite often, and one crashed near the village and burst into flames.

If they were too damaged to land, the pilots would try to get near to their home airfield so that the crew could use their parachutes, set the aircraft to fly by itself and jump out at the last minute before it crashed to the ground(2). Sometimes a very brave pilot would choose to fly his plane until it hit the ground, to steer it clear of houses and people. This was what happened when the one fell near us, in open fields. It is quite possible that I am still alive because that pilot died avoiding our school.

Apart from the weekends, when all the children were off school, much of my time in those free afternoons were spent with other evacuees, as we wandered round the farms and fields, swapping stories, experiences with our foster parents, and passing on the tricks and tips we had learned which made our strange situation bearable. For example, we soon learned not to start a sentence with 鈥淎t home we always鈥�.鈥� or 鈥淢y Dad says鈥︹�� These phrases were met with responses that started with 鈥淲ell, you are not at home now!鈥� 鈥攐r 鈥淣ever mind your Dad, just you listen to me!鈥�

Those of us who were lucky enough to find foster parents like mine (and there were many) owe them a tremendous debt, something that my parents always acknowledged. Even after I went back home to go to school, I stayed in touch with 鈥淎untie Eva鈥�, 鈥淯ncle Alf鈥� and their son Jack. Many years later when I got married, one of my first priorities was to take my new wife to meet them, we were invited to Jack鈥檚 Ruby Wedding celebration and our contacts carried on after Auntie Eva and Uncle Alf died. Jack and his wife have visited us at our present home and they tell me that other ex-evacuees are still in touch with their old foster families in the village 鈥攐ne even married a village girl!

Later Notes.

(1) A railway worker at the time told me, much later, that a system of priorities was already in place when war broke out which gave essential traffic (such as troop trains) first choice of lines. So our mysterious stopping and starting was probably due to being placed in sidings to clear the main line.

(2) The location of our village, and the many airfields around it, in East Anglia placed us within a short flight of the coastline around The Wash. When returning aircraft were unable to land, due to damaged undercarriages etc., it was not uncommon for the pilots to set the aircraft to fly out to sea after all the crew had bailed out.

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