大象传媒

Elma Vicarage 1909

I have lived in the same house in Ledbury since 1928. During the war I was asked to go to the local school to help deliver the evacuees that had arrived from Birmingham. My daughter saw the evacuees arrive at the station, she was about 10 years old. She liked the look of a little girl and she described her to me, she was wearing a blue knitted suit. When it came to choose I had to watch for this one girl to make sure she was the one my daughter wanted. The evacuees were all given a bag of sugar, a tin of corn beef and a packet of biscuits.
I used to make clothes for my daughter and I always made Joyce the evacuee the same. It was difficult to get fabric so I used to make things out of old clothes. I remember making my daughter a skirt out of my husbands cream coloured trousers, and I knitted a little lemon coloured top to go with it. My daughter said 鈥� I鈥檓 not wearing that I鈥檒l look like a bloomin egg.鈥�
The evacuee was like my own child, she stayed with us longer than all the other evacuees stayed. Once she went home for a weekend to Birmingham but the bombs started falling more so I went to fetch her back because she was like one of our own.
She stayed until she was 14 and went as her mother wanted her home. I remember my daughter said 鈥淲hat ever shall I do without Joyce鈥�. Today they are still in touch and still good friends.

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