大象传媒

Dec-03 My story as an evacuee.
On the 3rd September 1939 on a Sunday morning soon after war was declared & the first air raid warning sounded. I as an 11 year old was attending my local church St, Augustine鈥檚 in Belvedere south London
It was our practice as a cub scout to attend church every Sunday as part of our training to be a good scout.
Sunday morning church going was a boring experience for me and I hated it I was hoping that as the warning had sounded every one would want to go home vicar announced that as the warning had just sounded any one who wanted to leave could do so but no one did so we carried on till the end
After the service the all clear went as I was on my way home. At home my family had experience their first venture into their home made shelter dug in our back garden. This was dug some months earlier when everyone seemed to be digging holes in their garden. Ours was a very amateur attempt at a shelter it was a square hole about 6 ft by 6:covered over by old doorframes. The dug out earth was then placed on the top. All we wanted to do at the time was to have some were to go when the planes came over & the bombs started falling. My father kept saying that when Hitler starts to bombs as, the planes would number in there thousands & there would be mass destruction from the air

Yes we were all very frighten in those early days but to me it all seemed like a great adventure When my parents started talking about evacuation I could not wait to get away Although life with my parent & 3 brother 2 sisters had been a happy one My father worked as an electrician & my mother had a full time job looking after as.
But all this was about to change dramatically as within six months we would
be separated all over the country & the house sold We would not live together as a family for 3 long years

Within a few days of war being declared we assembled at school with our gas mask in its cardboard container slung over our shoulder. We lined up in the playground where it looked as if the whole school was there.. Mothers waiting outside as we marched in columns down to the railway station with a little bit of cheering & some tears all round.
We soon arrived at Sittingbourne in Kent where we were sorted out into family member &- sent to the areas where we were going to live.
My brother Donald & I were put together as a unit & we finally ended up with a middle-age couple. Who lived in a country cottage at the end of a long lane in a village called Newington? They both worked for a local farmer who at this time of the year was earnestly engaged in getting his apples to market. So my foster mother would get as up early in the morning to take as to the apple orchard Here we would experience the excitement of riding on a house & cart picking up the bushels of apples ready to go to market. Although we had over 3 miles to walk to school we were eager to return to the farm to help my foster mother collect the chicken eggs from her 100 odd birds she kept in the farmers orchard.

We had a very happy time there our foster mother who was strict & kind all this was about to change. France had fallen in 1940 & we were going to be evacuated to South Wales a place called Mountain Ash.
What a change in scenery, our foster parents lived in a mining village only a few hundred yards from the pit. Where it was a common sight to see the miners returning home covered in black coal dust. Our new foster parents were in their early thirties & at our first meeting they seemed kind & friendly. But we were soon to experience their hostile attitude towards as. It was obvious they didn鈥檛 want as there all the wanted was the money [they were paid 10/6 a week each for our keep]. As a result they staved as feeding as on two pieces of buttered bread in the morning for breakfast. Our mid day meal consisted of a basin of water with an oxo cub in it & one slice of bread. Dinner rarely consisted of any thing cooked & was mostly bread & jam with a cup of weak tea.
The consequence of this was obvious we were starving. My solution was to run errands for the neighbours saving the pennies they give me for going, to buy loaves of breads. These my brother @ I would hungry eat when we met after school.
As my enterprise at running errands grew I started putting my spare cash in a moneybox. This soon stopped when one day I discovered that my moneybox was nearly empty & it wasn鈥檛 my brother who was taking it After that I stated changing my pennies into sixpences @ hiding then in the moss that formed on a old wall I passed on my way to school.
In those days sweets @ chocolates were scare biscuits @ cakes were on ration so that left only bread which we were only too pleased to eat
Our 12 months of unhappiness was soon to end. My mother @ my 2 little sisters came down @ stayed with as to escape the bombing which was occurring in London About 12 months later my father had found a house& we all returned to live in Chingford..
. This was 1942 & although the nightly bombing had stopped we still had the periedodic raids & when I experienced my first raid after a couple off weeks back in London the loudness of the ack /ack guns were deafening it felt like hell on earth with all the search lights Chris crossing the sky & the bright red & yellows flashes of the gun. They felt as if they were firing from your back garden.
Towards the end of the war the flying bombs or doodle bugs as we called then started to fly over. I remember vividly the time I saw one from my
bedroom window. My brother Percy said look there鈥檚 a plane with its tail alight my first sight of a flying bomb.]

I was 14 @ eager to start work. I soon found myself a local job working in an aircraft factory building the fuselage of the mosquitoes one of the wonder planes, which was build entirely of wood. I loved working with wood @ I soon settled down helping to build theses great planes witch were often in action all over the world
My father fought in the trenches in the First World War & as a consequence had become very anti war so much so that he vowed to do his utmost to prevent his sons from joining the army. So he would lecture as on the chances of surviving the invasion of Europe. As he explained having no special skills we would be the first to land on the beaches & he would put it bluntly we would get our heads blown off. He reinforced his argument when our cousin was killed flying his spitfire over Singapore as a Flight sergeant aged 20.
Nevertheless I was still very keen to go & fight & was ashamed to mention my father鈥檚 views to my friends who seem to have some member of their family in the armed forces.
My brother Percy was coerced by my father & volunteered to go down the mines as a Beven boy. My father advised me to join the Merchant Navy, as I could never go down the mines. The thought of seeing the world appealed to my spirit of adventure as a young lad of 17 & I couldn鈥檛 wait to go
When I had completed my 6 weeks training as a steward I joined an oil tanker & left England soon after the war in Europe was over for the Middle East
We sailed down through the Mediterranean through The Suzy cannel & out to our base, the oil wells in the Persian Gulf
It was while we on our way to the Philippians recently recaptured by the Americans that we heard that the war with Japan was over There was talk about a Atomic bomb being dropped something none of as had ever heard of but we got to understand what it all meant before we reached the Philippines
When we arrived at Manila there were hundreds of cargo ships swinging back & forewords on their bouy,s. The consequence of the sudden ending of the war with Japan Most of theses ships were supply ships & now they had nowhere to go. We waited 2 months before orders came fore us to proceed to Durbin South Africa with our cargo of oil.
Now Durban was the first European city I had seen since we left home. The sights that confronted me when I ventured ashore was a land of plenty with the shops loaded with food and consumer goods we haven鈥檛 seen for many years. Although we wanted for nothing with regards food on board ship it was just wonderful to the city and shops lit up.

We spent another 12 months in the Middle East before we returned to England in March 19 47 in the middle of a fuel crisis and food still on ration. It was cold and wet when we passed the white cliffs of Dover on our way to Liverpool where we would leave the ship which had been our home for some 18 months and be paid off.
I took my fathers advice & stayed in the Merchant Navy so avoiding the call-up for the army I left after two more years.
Reflecting on those times of some sixty odd years ago as I often do.I think my father was right to persuade his sons not to go into the forces He probably saved my brother Percy life as he was twenty when it ended. As for my self luck was on my side for I was just over 17.when the Japanese war finished.
.
Fred Banks

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.