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My name is Kathleen and I was born 1926 which makes me 77 years old.

I have lived in Belfast all my life. During the First World in 1939 I lived in East Belfast which was near the docks & shipyard and the Germans bombed it on a regular basis. I was only twelve years old during the war and lived along with four brothers & sisters & mum & dad. My parents thought it was too dangerous to keep us in Belfast. So my sister Jesse aged 8, brother Hugh aged 10 and I were evacuated to Berney near Strabane. My sister Mollie was too young and my other sister Nora was working in the Grove factory as a weaver.

On the Saturday we were evacuated we went to our school, St Matthews, with all the other children. There were about 50 people went to the school that day. I was very apprehensive as I didn’t want to leave my mum & dad or family behind and frighten of what might happen to them as well as who I might have to live with or where I was going. My mum had packed our clothes into a case and we also had to carry our gas masks with us and each of us had labels with our names on them. We were all loaded on to a bus and most of the children were crying and upset. We were brought to Great Victoria Street train station and put on board a train. We were given a packed lunch for our journey.

We were on the train for about two and half hours and it was a very quiet journey because we were all so miserable and afraid of what lay ahead for us. When we arrived in Strabane we were put into a big parochial hall and there were adults there who were dividing us up into groups. We stood for a long time whilst they decided where best to put us and then it came to our turn and my sister Jesse & I were given to a Mrs Mohan and my brother Hugh was given to a Mrs Carlin. I was holding on to Hugh’s hand as I didn’t want us to be separated but they told me Mrs Mohan could only take two of us and Hugh was only be a few doors away.

Mrs Mohan took us by car to her house we had to travel for another hour to get there and it was very strange as it was in the country. Mrs Mohan has two children of her own Hugh & Maryann and her husband Paddy living in her house. The house was a bungalow which had three bedrooms and a living room with a big range which I had never ever seen before. She made us a cup of tea and we went to bed as we were so tired.

The next day, Sunday, Hugh & Maryann took Jesse & I out to meet the neighbours, it was a very small community with only five cottages and Hugh was only a few houses away I was very glad to see him and know he was nearby as the oldest I felt responsible for him & Jesse. Nothing much happened on the Sunday as we were all still too upset about leaving our family and being in very strange surroundings.

On the Monday we went to Camus school, the school was two white washed cottages. There were only two teachers Mrs Fitzwilliam & Mr Williams. Jesse was in Mrs Fitzwilliams and I was put in Mr Williams class. In the classroom all the girls sat at the front and the boys at the back. It was very different from my school in Belfast. I was use to a single desk but this school had a big form (single table) with chairs and we all sat in a row. I also found the lessons different as most of the things Mr Williams was teaching us I had already done in my own school. The school was a long way away from where we stayed almost three miles and we had to walk to school, the girls had shoes and most of the boys didn’t it wasn’t usual then to walk barefooted.

Once we got settled we wrote to our parents every week and got a letter back we missed them very very much. My dad sent us each 6d a week pocket money and we had to walk six miles to a post office to get the postal order cashed. We use to go to the pictures which was 3d and then we had to keep a penny for the stamp to post our letter each week so I had 2d to spend on sweets.

Every Sunday we use to walk 3 to 4 miles to church which we would never have been allowed to miss.

When we were in Belfast we always played in the street, games such as skipping, hopscotch & on rollerskates and with hoops but in the country we hadn’t got these things so we had to change the way we played. We use to climb up into mountain beside us. We use to collect blueberries & blackberries and if we managed to fill the bucket we had with us we got a 1d for our trouble.

Mr Mohan use to cut his own turf and we often went with him to help stack the turf which allowed it to dry before selling it. When the turf was dry we use to go on a cart to help stack it and then had to walk home afterwards because the cart was filled.

Mr Duffey was a farmer and he owned the fields in front of the cottages and grew corn one year & potatoes the following year. When the corn was ripe the threser came and cut the corn and we use to then stack the hay left behind into haystacks. When the harvest was potatoes we use to gather them baskets sorting the large spuds in one baskets and small one in another.

In the three years we were away from home my mum was only able to come every two months to visit us I never saw my other sisters or my dad until I got back. I still remember how hard that was.

Some time during the second year we were waken during the night by Mrs Mohan, and she made us get up and dressed and walked us up to the top of the mountain. I was really scared as I didn’t know what was happening and I thought we were going to get killed. We walked up to the top of the mountain and looking in the distance we saw all these flashing lights and could hear the noise — it was like fireworks only the noise was much worse and very very frightening. Mr Mohan told us then that it was Derry city being bombed and then I thought for sure that my mum & dad and sisters would be dead as Belfast was probably being bombed as well. There were no telephone in peoples’ homes at the time and we couldn’t even find out how our parents or families were it seem a long long time before we found out they were safe. We didn’t have television and no one then bought newspapers because there were no shops near by. We listened to the radio to get news. The houses we lived in didn’t have electricity and the radio operated by battery. We used oil lamps for light. We also had no running water, no flushing toilet. To get water we had to carry it from a spout in two wooden buckets like a milk maid. To go to the toilet we had to use a bucket then get rid of it in a midden and we used rain water from a big barrel out the back of the house for washing clothes.

After three and half years we were brought back home again. I was ready to start work then at 15 and although the war wasn’t over the bombing had stopped. I enjoyed some of the experience was very glad to be home with my family.

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