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I was evacuated from south east London when I was four and a half in September 1940. We where all marched to Paddington station with our little brown parcels and gas masks and we just had to get on a train, nobody knew where we where going, we only knew we where getting away from London and the bombing and we just had to hope for the best. I was evacuated with my two sisters (Doris and Rose) and my young brother, my eldest sister was left behind because she had a job. It was a very long journey to a four and a half year old but eventually we got off at Camargen in Wails. There we where marched like ants through the streets of the town until we got to some busses which took us to the places we would be staying. My family and other children where set down on a bridge at a place called whitemill. There we where lined up and the various people who said they would take evacuees came and picked us out if they liked the look of us. It strikes me now as if they where picking out puppy dogs from a shop window but at the time I was simply to Bewildered by all the events of that day to care much. Me and My elder sister Doris where picked out by a nice looking couple who took us away in their car, whilst my brother was picked out by a local clergyman. As we drove away I remember looking back and seeing my sister Rose and another child left behind back on the bridge and feeling very worried for them as there appeared to be nobody who wanted to take them home.

The couple we stayed with where lovely to us and made us feel very good. Three weeks later Aunt Betty (as we called the wife of this couple) asked us if we wanted to go and see my brother and sister. I was so happy when we drove up to the farm of some relatives of theirs and my sister was standing at the gate waiting for us as I had been worried that she had been left behind for good.

It was a very different way of life in Wails to that which I had had before. The farm we stayed in had no electricity and no gas, so we used to have to cook on a coal fire and take candles to bed! Our people had been unable to have children and so they raised us as if we where theirs, we where introduced to all aspects of farm life and by the age of six I was milking the cows, though I was let off doing the early mourning milking. In time we became completely at home on the farm and had all sorts of fun. For example we used to go swimming in the harvested corn and would slide of the hayricks, nowadays I wonder how I survived doing that but it was all good fun at the time.

In return for the hard work we did on the farm however we got to take advantage of the better position farmers had when it came to rationing. For a start farm households received extra rations due to the large amount of physical labour we had to put into farming, and as well as this most farms had a little something on the side as well. On our farm we kept a pig for the ham and bacon when it came to harvest, whether or not this was entirely legal didn’t seem to matter and I always felt justified in the extra food we received.

We where evacuated into a small rural community and all of the evacuees where far apart from each other. Partly because of this some people tried to tar the evacuees by saying that we where ‘dirty Londoners’. I think that there where some of the evacuees who where like this, but our mother had brought us up to have good manners so we where able to show that we weren’t. On the whole the adults where very good about us and it was mostly the children who gave us abuse. This was partially because at first we where educated separately from the towns children by two English teachers who had been evacuated with us in the church annex. However later we where integrated into the local welsh school and this definitely helped matters. It also helped that the couple we where staying with where very respected in the community.

I very much enjoyed by time on the farm, as did my sister rose. However Doris became old enough to leave school during the war and was anxious to get away, I don’t think she liked the hard work either, this made her unhappy and she left before the end of the war to take up another job. When the war was over my mother came to see me and asked me ‘do you want to come back?’ The couple I was staying with me also wanted to adopt me, so I was somewhat confused as to what I should do. Eventually I said that I wanted to go back to London to see how it was but that I also wanted to come back to wails. When I got home I absolutely hated the city, however now I found that there was no going back, although I did go to the farm for my school holidays every year. My sister Rose on the other hand did decide to stay on her farm and ended up managing it for a while after she left school.

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