大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Swindon College on behalf of Ivy Griffiths and has been added to the site with her permission. Ivy fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was eleven years old and 2 days before the war broke out I was evacuated. Every day that week all the children in our school had had to take their small suitcase to school with them. Every morning, my father had come to the school gate to see what was going to happen. On the Friday morning, we were told that we were to be evacuated immediately. No one knew where to or how long it would take us to get there. All we had was our small case with one change of clothes, a gas mask and a postcard to send to our parents to tell them our new address. My sister and brother were also evacuated at the same time.

I remember vividly that walk to the station, parents had to walk down to the station on the other side of the road, Dad included. We weren鈥檛 allowed to say goodbye even. Just wave to Dad as we walked into the station. No parents were allowed to come into the station either. The teacher took us down to the platform and on to the train.

We were taken to Wadden Green School near Bletchley. Then people came and picked which child or children they wanted to take. I was taken with a few other children to the big manor house in Wadden. I had a wonderful time here. All clean clothes neatly laid out on the bed every morning for each child. Good food and plenty of it. Servants did the washing, ironing and cooking. I remember going out blackberry picking, and Hartley鈥檚 Jams used to come and buy the blackberrires 鈥� we were allowed to keep the money too. The evacuees had swelled the number of children in the area so the school could not take us all. School became 鈥減art-time鈥�. I thoroughly enjoyed going to school here, such a shame we were only allowed to go in the afternoon.

My brother and sister went to another lady in village 鈥� but they were not so lucky. They went to school in the morning so I didn鈥檛 see them at school. When they went home they had little food and had to go to their bedroom. The lady used to lock them in there and then she would go out. I used to feel very sorry for them. When I found some left over food in the Manor house, I used to go to the house where my siblings were. They used to lower a tin box down to me on a piece of string. I would then place the food in the tin box and they then pulled the box up and into their bedroom. I did this quite regularly.

One week, Dad turned up 鈥� he was home on leave and came to see us all. He was very unhappy when he saw my sister and brother and decided to take us all home. I was very sorry to leave the manor house 鈥� I had been well cared for and life there was very very comfortable.

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