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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Maddy Rhodes a volunteer with Radio Suffolk, on behalf of Jane Bell who has given permission for it to be submitted. Jane Bell fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Evacuation in WW2 was not an anticipated excitement for me, at the age of 6 or 7. I was fearful. The only consolation was that my mother accompanied us, my brother not being three years old at the time.
My infant school was destined for Leeds. In charge Miss Dobson, of opera singer proportions wearing large stud earrings.
Our journey started at East Croydon Railway Station .En route one third pint bottles of milk were issued. I never drank milk, but where was the letter of dispensation? The persistent encouragement was to no avail.
Of course the memories are dim, but I remember the first night of our journey we slept in a community hall on camp beds with brown blankets. At one end of the hall hessian sacks full of potatoes were stacked roof high. They gave off a somewhat earthy smell to the surroundings.
The most traumatic memory is of our charabanc. This was driven around the outskirts of Leeds, looking for possible lodgings for the evacuees who were unaccompanied. Miss Dobson, long gone with older children perhaps. At one house where we stopped, the lady occupant could only take one of two brothers. The other was left crying, not knowing where he would be housed, or if he would see his brother again — quite shocking.
It got very late, and and last my mother and us three children were put in a requisitioned house with another mother and her sons. I recall the younger son we shared with wet the bed and each morning his mother hung his mattress over the bannister to dry.
The house had a small back garden with a privet hedge. I cannot stand the smell of privet flowers to this day. My mother used flat irons heated up on the gas ring to press the laundry. We collected eggs from a nearby farm in exchange for waste
food scraps.
A visit to the Palace of Varieties in Leeds was enjoyed quite often, and we watched Old Mother Riley and Kitty. The theatre was later bombed.
There were lovely walks to be taken. Once we watched a sailor home on leave jump over a bridge into a stream to retrieve his hat that had blown off. The winter was bitterly cold and strong winds necessitated holding onto lamp posts to keep upright.
The little school was quite friendly, and made an effort to pacify my sobs at having to wear ginger brown woollen stockings, supported of course by suspenders and liberty bodice. I was stood on the teacher’s desk for my stockings to be admired! At a later date, I was hit on the side of the face by a plasticine board, resulting in weeks of medical care for ear trouble, so not all was well.
My poor mother found it all quite awful I think , and after about a year we returned home to Shirley, just in time for the doodlebugs. We had an Anderson shelter where we all slept in the lounge and life was less traumatic in our own surroundings of woods and fields.
Italian prisoners of war were billetted in Nissan huts on the disused golf course. Also many soldiers lived in requisitioned houses in the area. At the end of the war an enormous bonfire was built on the field at the side of our house and jacket potatoes cooked and eaten. I doubt there was butter on them, but it was a great celebration.

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