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Britain had moved into top gear and there were black-outs to organise and long queues to stand in to obtain our gas masks. The voluntary services were flat out collecting clothing and blankets preparing for bombing and evacuation. So Margery and 1 found ourselves battling with mounds of garments from ball gowns to combinations, not all clean by any means. Why the powers that be considered Brighton to be a safe location, goodness only knows but by early October [1939] the WRVS was advised that a group of east end mothers and children was coming from London at the weekend, about 250 in all. They omitted to warn us that most of the mothers would be in their last month of pregnancy. No bombs had been dropped as yet but many of us feared it would happen soon. We had been able to register about 200 households who would accept evacuees and had found about 100 drivers willing to help. Petrol was short and driving in the blackout was a nightmare, especially when drivers might have to find difficult addresses. We prayed that our group might come in broad daylight.
Sadly our prayers were not answered. On a cool October afternoon a woebegone troupe of Londoners staggered out of a crowded train at Brighton Station. To our horror nearly all of them were heavily pregnant and the children were crying, "Oi wanna go 'ome". Then came the suitcases, the bedrolls, the brown paper parcels, bursting at the seams and. for the kids' sake a few favourite dogs, cats mewing in shoe boxes and even a canary in a large cage. Pandemonium ensued as most of the luggage was not labelled and the dogs escaped, barking happily, chased by angry porters. To bring some order into chaos, I remember our Master of beagles, our Allocation Officer and an ex-soldier, using his parade ground voice to shout through a megaphone. "Ladies and gentlemen, can we have a bit of Hush?" None of the gentlemen was over ten years old but they did stop crying and started to retrieve their dogs. At last it was sorted out but by now it was getting cold and growing dark. Harassed chauffeurs drove away with their families to difficult destinations clutching street maps and pencil torches. Later we heard that many families in our town had rejected the evacuees because of the pregnant mothers. The Whitehawk district came up trumps and helped house some of the rejects and eventually for quite a few families we found overnight shelter on the floor of the Metropole's Winter Garden, our favourite dance floor. We had to tear round borrowing mattresses and Li-Los and luckily we had plenty of blankets in our store but it was well after midnight before we'd finished. In the early morning the desperate Manager from the Metropole rang to tell us they had become a maternity hospital and several babies had been born during the night. I think the Brighton General hospital helped us out for a while. It was a sad experience for everybody as, after a few weeks, most of the families returned to London only to be bombed in the terrible blitz.
This story was submitted to the People's War site by Sue Craig from MyBrightonandHove on behalf of Eve Bracegirdle and has been added to the site with her permission. Eve fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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