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60 years ago…….

I was only nine and half years old when our family and colleagues 'invaded' Truro, as evacuees... My big adventure started in April 1944 when the Germans started sending the V2 flying bomb to London and they overshot and started landing in West London.
One day we were told to pack our gas mask and enough clothes for a couple of days and we were transported to Twickenham Station. A Steam train with lots of coaches in camouflage was waiting and we collected a lunch box and started our journey. I recall we stopped at Swindon and half the train was uncoupled - I think that this part went to Wales. After a long time we arrived at Truro in the evening. We were sent to a 'rest centre' I think it was the town hall, where lost of mattresses were laid out on the floor. We had something to eat and Mum told us that we would be sent to a 'billet the next day. I remember a huge pan of porridge cooking in the corner - our breakfast!. Being one of a family of five plus Mum (Dad stayed at home to help with the war effort - building wooden airplanes) we were the last to be found a home and the Lady at Benson House didn’t know about us until we arrived! It was quite late and I remember that the town hall people had sent blankets and clothes with the two cars needed to get us to our 'billet.
We could not have found a nicer place if we had chosen it ourselves. We were what you might call 'street urchins' from a council estate in Twickenham. I think the term is working class. I remember Mum putting on her 'posh' voice and telling us all to behave and don't touch anything!. We found out that Mr Mulliner was the Chancellor of the Cathedral ( I think) and Mrs Mulliner was his wife. She was a lovely lady with lots of patience. My Mum and Dad kept in touch with her up until she died, I think she lived in Caversham then. Prior to that they both moved to Windermere when Rev. Mulliner was made Archdeacon of Windermere?
I remember the gardener, Mr Pearce who often had to chase us off for scrumping his apples, but we did settle down and help with some of the chores. The Maid, Connie was very nice and I think she left in July to get married to an Airman.
I have only been back to Truro twice since then, in 1996 when I was on a camping/sailing holiday at St. Just -in-Roseland. It was a quick shopping trip and I did ask at a local chandlery about Benson House. He told me that it was 'gone' and was redeveloped into flats.After a chat turned out he was about to retire and he would have been at the school at the same time that we had to attend. I have forgotten the name but on my second visit last year I re-traced my haunts with my brother ( he wasn't born until 1946) I found Benson House, and I think the original gateway is still there. We walked away from there to 'the moors' where we used to picnic and play games and catch' stony roach in the tidal stream that fed the laundry - now a home for retired?.
I wonder why the moors have been left to grow wild. I recall that it was an expanse of green meadows with cows grazing. And was there only one viaduct in 1944?
I recalled that the 'esplanade' in Lemon Street was where we went to watch the barges being offloaded and catch crabs that fell off he cargo.

One thing hasn't changed you can still play 'Pooh sticks in the gulley.
Locals may remember us - we were the Martin Family, there was also the Blows family who stayed in Mutton Cottages and the Tidy family who stayed in a house down the side of Mutton Cottages, we went to school from May to late July.
We went on day trips to Perranporth and Falmouth where we watched the army taking down the barbed wire and clearing the beaches.

My brother now resides in Devoron, so I might see a bit more of the lovely Cornish countryside.
Dennis Martin (now coming up to 70!)

May 2004

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