´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People's War site at Surrey History Centre on behalf of Mrs Joyce Mills (née Emmott). It has been added to the site with the author's permission, and she fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

When the war started in 1939, we happened to be on holiday. We arrived back home on 3 September 1939 - we lived in West Dulwich. West Dulwich had a railway station and our Grandfather once took us outside to see all the troops coming back from Dunkirk on a train, covered in blood and bandages etc.

In 1940, we were evacuated down to Cornwall, to a village called Landrake which is just over the Tamar Bridge, about 4 miles inland. There were 3 children in our family - my brother, my sister and me. We met up with other children before being evacuated and made friends with 3 other children. The 6 of us were lucky enough to be billeted to the largest farm in the area. I'm often asked if I went hungry during the war and I'd have to say no because we lived on the farm. The farm raised and killed its own pigs and hens so we lived very well with plenty of food. We stayed there for 2-3 years until 1943.

In 1941, the doctor used to visit the village twice a week (so you couldn't afford to be ill!). On one occasion, I was in a lot of pain and it turned out to be appendicitis. The headmaster had to drive me into Plymouth for the operation which was pretty hairy! There was very little transport - one bus a day to Saltash. I was there for a week during which Plymouth got bombed for the first time. I was in an adult ward and the next day the King and Queen were coming down to visit, not knowing Plymouth would get bombed — however, all the patients were transferred by train to a hospital in Exeter. The day I left Exeter hospital, that got bombed too! I really do believe that a bomb either had your name on it or it didn't.

In August 1942, my father worked for Eagle Oil as a Master Mariner on the oil tankers which carried oil from South America. The vessel he was on while in convoy in the North Atlantic got torpedoed and it went down in 2 minutes — all he could do was just walk off the bridge. He got picked up and taken to America by an American vessel.

Meanwhile, we came back to London in 1943, and I then got evacuated to Guildford! I was at Wandsworth Technical College and the College had to be evacuated to Guildford Tech. It was at the time of the Doodlebugs and we would have to go across a field to get to the air raid shelter - we used to watch the Doodlebugs fly across the sky! I was down here for a year.

In 1944, father had recovered and was sent to Bromborough, across the River Mersey from Liverpool - there he worked on the PLUTO, or 'PipeLine Under The Ocean', project which supplied millions of gallons of fuel to the Allied forces during the D-Day landings. I left Guildford in 1944 and went up to Bromborough, to a little village called Bebington which was part of Port Sunlight complex. It could be very smelly if the wind was blowing in the wrong direction because of the soap factories! I lived with my parents and went to school up here.

My sister joined the land army in Cornwall in 1944 and my brother was at public school in [Rossell], Lancashire.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.