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This story has been written onto the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by CSV Story gatherer Jessica on behalf of Dennis Martin. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.
I was only 9 years old when our family and colleagues ‘invaded’ Truro as evacuees… In April 1944 when the Germans started sending the V2 flying bomb to London and they overshot and started landing in West London.
We were told to pack our gas mask and some clothes and 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 one 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 lots 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, (Ron, me - Den, Joyce, Brian and Mavis aged from 4 - 11), plus Mum (Mabel) (Dad stayed at home to help with the war effort) 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 there.
We could not have found a nicer place if we had chosen it ourselves. We were working class from a council estate in Powder Mill Lane, Twickenham. 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.
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 redeveloped into flats. After a chat it turned he was about to retire and he would have been at the school at the same time as we had to attend. I have forgotten the name but on my second visit last year I retraced my haunts with my brother Steve, (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 loach in the tidal stream that fed the laundry.
I wonder why the moors have been left to grow wild. I recall it was an expanse of green meadows with cows grazing. I recalled that the esplanade in Lemon Street was where we went to watch the barges being off loaded and catch crabs that fell off the cargo. One thing hasn’t changed; you can still play poo-sticks in the gulleys.

We went on day trips to Perranporth and Falmouth where we watched the army take down the barbed wire and clear the beaches. Our adventure ended sometime in August 1944 when the danger of the doodlebugs and V1s had passed and the war was moving east through Europe.
My Mum and Dad kept in touch with Mrs Mulliner until she died, I think she lived in Caversham then, prior to that they both moved to Windermere when Mr Mulliner was made Archdeacon of Windermere (I think he died about 1948).
Senior 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 and we went to school from May - late July 1944.

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