大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Kristen Helsby of Congleton Library on behalf of Hilda Mottershead and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

My mother used to make the evacuees & soldiers get up for the air raid sirens 鈥� they didn鈥檛 want to get up, but she made them! She had such a lot of evacuees. The first lot she had 2 little girls. My mother went out to where the evacuees were in the town (from Manchester) and the children were all lined up in a row and my mother went up and said 鈥淕ive me two off that end!鈥�. She had these two little girls and when they went back, she had two little boys. Their job was to look after the chickens and as Christmas came, they were going home for Christmas and my dad had given them each a chicken and they went away with the chickens on their backs!

Next she had two Wrens 鈥� and then after that she had three soldiers. The hallway of the house was full of guns!! We couldn鈥檛 get into the house for all the guns! I wasn鈥檛 at home at the time (I got married in 1939, the year of the war). I did a lot of helping with these evacuees 鈥� particularly with the little girls at the beginning. They were only small 鈥� they had nothing with them, they were very poor. The day they arrived I began to make them smocks and dresses.

My mother received a special certificate signed by the Queen as an appreciation of all her help in taking in these evacuees and soldiers. It is now at the Congleton Museum.

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