大象传媒

Although folk speak of the evacuation of children from the cities at the outbreak of WW2, they were also evacuated at later periods of the war as well.

During the latter part of the war when I was coming up for 5 years of age we had (fortunately) a near miss with a flying bomb (doodlebug). The engine stopped and it glided in silence over our house, everyone held their breath waiting. It went over the houses on the other side of the road and across what may have been allotments. It then scraped over the roof of the single story school and hit the house just opposite. Our windows at the front of the house and the front door were blown in by the blast. I was on an eiderdown under the dining room table.

Mum thought this was too close for comfort and she said in later years that it had made me rather nervous when I heard a plane going over. So she decided that evacuation for me was the order of the day. When the matter was broached I steadfastly said I would only go if she were there, so we both went to Norfolk. Just prior to us setting off my aunt had taken me to see Disney鈥檚 鈥楽now White鈥�, the scene where the wicked queen transformed into a witch had freighted me more than the flying bomb!

Mum used to tell a harrowing tale of how long this journey took by train; there were frequent stops miles from anywhere. When the train arrived it was chaos and billeting people took hours. Eventually we were taken to a remote farmhouse with no running water or electricity, a far cry from Grandma鈥檚 house in Romford!

It was after 1am when we arrived at the farmhouse, the home of a very elderly spinster and her equally elderly bachelor brother. It took ages for my mother to get an answer to the door. Eventually the heavy door was unlocked and there stood this very old lady, toothless, with a nightcap, and in her nightgown holding up a candle in a candleholder. To my mother鈥檚 horror I screamed and clung to he legs yelling, 鈥淚t鈥檚 the witch, it鈥檚 the witch!鈥� She often said our stay there was blighted by my assessment of the situation!

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