大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by avolunteer from 大象传媒 London CSV , Judy Kirsch, on behalf of Betty Groutage and Betty and William Noakes
And has been added to the site with their permission. They fully understand the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Betty and William are sister and brother.

On the Friday before war was declared, Betty was evacuated,but William was too young to go. You had to be 5 and he didn鈥檛 turn five until the next day, 4th September.

I (Betty) was a pupil at Stonebridge Park, and we left from Paddington Station. I remember passing familiar places on the train, including my school and we went to Northampton. I was placed with an elderly couple but only stayed until just before Christmas. It was the first time I had been away from home.

I came home because nothing had happened- no bombing yet.

When the bombing did start in 1940, we were both evacuated to Weston 鈥攕uper- Mare and were together with the same family. They had two children of their own. William was neglected.He had scabies and other problems. Eventually both were moved to another family, but we were bombed out in 1942. We were in the house at the time when a bomb struck the fish and chip shop opposite. I presume they were killed. Our windows and doors were blown out.The house wasn鈥檛 suitable to livs in any more. It took 2 days for our parents to find out what had happened to us because there were problems with communication. So they came down and took us home. They thought we might as well be bombed with them.
We stayed in London until 1944 when the V1s and V2s came to London. We stood in the street watching them and waiting for the engines to cut out. We knew were in trouble when the engines cut out. We called them Doodlebugs.

Evacuation started again, and our parents then decided to evacuate us to Drefach a village in Wales.All this moving around upset our education,especially in Wales where William鈥檚 headmaster refused to speak English. Without knowing why William was hit by him. He told Mrs Evans who looked after us, she reported it to the education authority who intervened. We had to go to church on Sundays REGULARLY and services were in Welsh.

Mrs Evans took in 5 evacuees and had two children of her own. It was a crowded little 2 bedroomed house. No electicity, no bathroom, outside toilet down the garden. All the cooking had to be done on the fire. If we had a roast it had to be taken to a neighbour up the road who had an oven. Most of the time we had cawl (a sort of stew cooked over the fire) William trapped rabbits for the pot and collected stinging nettles for the stew as well. Betty and the other girls had to do all the housework Eventually she rebelled. William has happier memories of life with Mrs Evans 鈥淲hen I heard the war was over I was very upset.I didn鈥檛 want to go home

When we first arrived in Wales, we sat in a group at the village school,and people chose who they wanted. At first we went to different families, but not for long. I (William) was very upset and Mrs Evans agreed to take me as well,so we could be together. She was 28 years old, had been married twice,and was a widow. We stayed with her until VE day and were sent home.

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