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Away From Home — an evacuee’s story: part two

By Rosemary Stevens

THE FIRST NIGHT

We were told we would spend the night at the school before being taken to our billets (new homes) in the morning. The school was all right but not as nice and airy as ours.

We were given supper in the dining room. As far as I can remember, it was Spam, boiled potatoes and salad, followed by jam tart with thick pastry and not much jam. It was OK — we were hungry.

We had a wander round the school for about half an hour or so and then were told to go to the gym where we were to sleep. The seniors were in the hall and we middle schoolers were in the gym which looked strange. The floor was dotted all over with mattresses. On each mattress were two grey blankets and a pillow. No sheets or pillowcases. We were told to make up our beds. My friend Brenda and I decided to push our mattresses together, put one blanket to cover the mattresses and have the other blankets over us so that we had three blankets. We thought that was rather clever.

The teachers that were in charge of us were not our teachers. Very kindly the staff of the school we were in had offered to look after us for the night as they knew our teachers were very tired. They also had our teachers to stay in their homes for the night.

We washed, a bit, and cleaned our teeth in the school cloakrooms and said the Lord’s Prayer and were wished goodnight and told to be quite by a pleasant-seeming strange teacher. We whispered and giggled for a bit — then fell asleep quite quickly in spite of the prickliness and strange smell of the blankets.

We were awakened at about midnight by a loud jangle of bells. It was an air raid warning. We were told to get up, put our shoes on and put a blanket around us (we hadn’t got dressing gowns) and follow the teacher out of the gym and on to the playing field where the shelters were. These were ‘Anderson’ shelters — dug half into the ground with grass over the top of corrugated iron. Brenda and I put two blankets round both of our shoulders so that we were sort of joined together. Outside was very dark. We could hear the drone of the aeroplanes. Ours or theirs? We stumbled on, following the teachers’ torches.

We finally went down three steps into a shelter. We were used to these types of shelter, as we had the same on the playing fields at our school at home.

We sat, about thirty of us, on wooden benches along the shelter. It was dimly lit by a lantern tied on a hook with a little bit of string. We sang some jolly songs without much enthusiasm and yawned and talked and giggled. After about an hour we heard someone ringing a bell and a voice came from the entrance - ‘all clear!’ - so thankfully we stumbled back to the gym and our hard mattresses.

And then, would you believe it, after about two hours sleep the whole thing happened again! We stumbled on over the damp cold slippery grass yet another time. We were all very sleepy and disoriented. Brenda and I suddenly felt we were going uphill and stumbled and fell to be rescued and heaved to our feet by a friendly teacher. We had been trying to walk up the side of a shelter in the dark!

I don’t know how long we were there at the time — one or two girls fell asleep in the shelter. Most of us just murmured and yawned until the welcome sound of a of a bell and the shout out — ‘all clear’. Back to our beds. I don’t think any bombs had fallen anywhere near us.

We were wakened at about 7.30. We washed a bit, dressed, folded our blankets neatly as we were told and staked our mattresses.

I can’t remember what we had for breakfast. But it was all right. So ended our first night away from home.

WE GO TO OUR BILLETS

After breakfast we were told to collect our luggage, ‘don’t leave anything behind’, and we were all given a stamped postcard that had printed on it ‘I have arrived safely this is my address’ and were told to address it, sign it and post it as soon as we had got to our billets.

We were then milling about outside where there were lots of buses and were told ( we had to listen hard for our names) which bus to get into, we were not going to stay in Newark but in villages round about because there were factories in Newark so bombing was possible.

There was only one girl from our class in my bus. I was sorry not to be with any of my close friends, but Grace Steib and I became good friends. She was a nice, but very quiet girl.

We were dropped off the bus outside the village school in Farndon, a rather pretty village with a thatched post office, about four miles from Newark. The rest of the girls in the bus were going on to other villages. Grace and I were, I think, the only ones from our school. When we got inside the little building I saw, standing across the room some boys amongst whom was David, my brother, who winked at me. I was glad to know he was going to be in the same village.

There were some women there and an important looking woman who was sitting at a table looking worriedly at a list. She was reading out houses. David’s house was read out and he and his friend Jim went off with a pleasant looking woman. He turned and grinned at me reassuringly.

Grace’s name was read out and she went off with a nice looking older woman. Then it was my turn. A quite large woman, older than my mother, came up tom me and told me her name was Mrs Knight, and she took me out to her car and drove to the edge of the village to her house. It was very large, Victorian looking, in a big garden with a circular drive leading to the front door. She told me she had five daughters but only the youngest two were at home, They were twins, about six months younger than me, called Nancy and Muriel. I don’t think I said much. I felt a bit a bit stunned and tired.

Mrs.Knight took me into a small room, gave me a glass of hot milk (which I don’t like, but I drank it) sat me down with a pen and paper and said ‘Write to your mother’. So I did — not a very long letter, but telling her I was all right and not to worry. Mrs.Knight said it would be posted straight away. I produced the postcard which I had been given and she gave it and my letter to a maid in a blue dress with a big white apron and a cap and asked her to go out and post them.

She then took me to meet Muriel and Nancy. We all said ‘Hello’ and stood there feeling awkward. Mrs.Knight then took me to meet Mrs.Sheppard (Sheppy) who was very pretty and kind and bouncy. She was the ‘mother’s help’. I became very fond of her.

Then Mrs.Knight showed me my room. It was an odd little spare room, quite small, and you got to it by going through Vera, the maid’s, room. I didn’t much like that, but it didn’t matter as she got up in the morning earlier than me and went to bed later.

I can’t remember anything more about that day. It was all a bit dream-like. The house was very large with two staircases and about seven bedrooms and as well as Vera and Sheppy there was a woman who came to do the rough work in the mornings and an aged gardener with a gardener’s boy who was, they said, a bit ‘simple’.

I had never lived in a household like that. Our house at home was a pleasant modern house in a pleasant modern street. We had three bedrooms and Mrs.Wallace came in to help with the housework just on Friday mornings and had lunch with us in the kitchen. It was so very different.

I went to bed and to sleep too tired to think about anything much. I hoped Mum would get my letter soon.

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