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The Bombing Starts 1940

Second Evacuation - Reading

This time I went on my own. My sister was now at work. My mother and young brother decided they would brave it out in London, in The Dock Area hoping that nothing would happen. The river Thames was at the bottom of our street so the planes would navigate up the river to London.

This time we went by coach and train to Reading. We wondered why ‘reading’ was on all the vans as we travelled. We all waited in a school, me clutching my new doll, and wearing my new sandals. I waited and waited nobody seemed to want me. Then a lady came in and asked if there was anybody on their own about eight years old. So I put my hand up, hopefully, and she said yes I do. It turned out she had a daughter of eight who wanted company. She took me home, nice house. I had my own bedroom, first time ever, plus my own bed (I shared room and bed with my sister) but we were well off compared to everyone else in the street who shared their house as well. As least we had a whole house to ourselves as a family.

Quite nice to get to this semi-detached house with big garden. The local school could accommodate us at first. Then we were sent to a school on our own — but it was not a school but a big hall. As evacuees increased they were school in a separate building. It was awkward at times so timetables had to be adjusted so that noisy lessons i.e music and singing were offset by needlework lessons or something else quiet i.e you could not concentrate on maths whilst singing was going on in the same room. We were divided into two classes in a big hall.

I joined the brownies with Betty the daughter of the house. Mrs Wilson (the lady) bought my uniform for me. Even down to brown knickers. I was enrolled under the chestnut trees in September 1940. We used go Saturday mornings.

One day my mum wrote to say she was going to visit me and Mrs Wilson said I could go to the station to meet her. She told me which bus to look for. Unfortunately the government had decreed that all signs and destinations should be removed in case of invasion. So all the buses that came along didn’t tell me where they were going. I sat there for hours waiting for this bus to come along and eventually went home, panic stricken as I thought I’d missed my mum. Fortunately she managed to find me. Told me off for not meeting her and I then explained what had happened and was forgiven.

I stayed there again until about Christmas and was very sorry to leave. Mum had moved to Salisbury (her home town) and took me to Salisbury to be with her.

Although I was not in London we still heard what was going on. One little boy was crying in class and we heard his parents had been killed in London. Me dad was a fire watcher at night in London. My brother was in the air force; my second brother was building aircraft, working in an aircraft factory.

Eventually after the big raids stopped in 1941 we came back to London. Every time we had a doodlebug come over mum would take my little brother and dog back to Salisbury. I had been accepted in local grammar school by then and wanted to get with steady schooling and not move all the time. I had great gaps in my education but still obtained a scholarship and a grant from the government to go to grammar school. I wanted to be a nurse so it was vital I got my education. I eventually got to be a nurse in 1947 just pre NHS.

Typed by UCN Volunteer
Janice Brodie
21st February 2005

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