- Contributed by听
- AngelaW
- People in story:听
- Angela d. Waller
- Location of story:听
- London
- Article ID:听
- A2409068
- Contributed on:听
- 10 March 2004
Early in 1940, when I was about 7-1/2 yrs old, my parents decided to send me to USA to stay with one of my mother's aunts in Cleveland, Ohio. I went through all the formal processes preparatory to evacuation, and all the "informal" processes too -- my mother had my hair cut very short in a style she thought I could manage by myself, and I was given a piece of jewellery that my mother had inherited from HER mother with the instruction that I was to "wear it always".
Various documents arrived in the post confirming that all arrangements had been made, and that I should be taken to a certain train at a mainline London railway station, from where I would go to an "embarkation port" and would sail for USA within a few days. The ship on which I was to sail was called "The City Of Benares".
Just two days before I was to leave my mother made what proved to be a fateful decision... "She's not going. We will all stay together, even if it means that we die together." And my name was removed from the sailing list.
As history shows, the "City of Benares" was torpedoed within hours of sailing, and only a handful of the passengers were saved.
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