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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Three Counties Action, on behalf of Frederick Lumley, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I am Frederick G. Lumley I was an evacuee, and what follows are my memories. I was living in Nth. Kensington, London W10 at the start of WW2.

One month before my 8th birthday on Saturday September 2nd 1939 I went to school, St Mary’s, East Row and everyone was in the playground. My mum gave me a shilling (5p in decimal money) 24 times more than the halfpenny she usually gave me for milk, I thought she had made a mistake but quickly put it in my trouser pocket. Mum left me there, without saying goodbye or telling me I would not be coming home that night.

I remember walking up Kensal Road in crocodile to Ladbroke Grove and getting on a bus to go to a railway station. We all got on a train and had to change somewhere. Somehow I became separated from my own group. I recognised Johnny Carter one of my neighbours a little older than myself and tagged along with him.

Eventually we arrived at Easterton in Wiltshire, and were marched through the village. As we passed houses the occupiers, standing at their gates chose children from the crocodile, sometimes one sometimes two and that was then where we were to live. At the end of the village all those who had not been chosen were billeted at the Vicarage. Mrs McGrath a widow wishing to be called Graffie picked me and my new friend John. Graffie had a son Don who worked in the local carpenter’s shop. They also had a dog. Graffie made us very welcome, and for our first tea she gave us a boiled egg.

There was a big garden to this house and Graffie told each of us which apple tree we could call our own.

The children who had been picked out of the crocodile on that first day were threatened with being sent to the vicarage if they misbehaved!

The evacuees in Easterton did not have a schoolroom to attend for the first few weeks so spent most of their time in the fields.

Eventually a tiny hall was found, no bigger than a living room, to act as a schoolroom. A curtain was hung across the middle of the room to separate the different age groups. Graffie’s son Don made the inkwell stands for this little schoolroom.

The winter of 1939/40 was very severe. The boys (strangely no girls arrived in Easterton, even though a mixed school started the journey) thoroughly enjoyed sledging down the hills of Salisbury Plain. We could not have had this fun in London war or no war.

An isolated house in another part of the village was damaged by a friendly shell, while two evacuee brothers also by the name of Carter were billeted there. Most of the evacuees in Easterton were happy where they were but because of the shell incident I assume the authorities decided we were in the wrong place and the teachers announced that we had to go to Paignton in Devon. Some of the children went to Devon, some returned home, but the rest of us were happy where we were so stayed in Easterton. We were then accepted in the local school.

At the beginning of the summer holidays my parents visited me, and asked me if I would like to come home for a holiday, as there was no danger in London at the time. I said I did not want a holiday I wanted to come home for good. So it was arranged that I should a short time later.

Graffie put my belongings in a bundle and tied them to a stick, Dick Whittington style, and put me on a train to London, where my Mum was waiting for me on the platform at Paddington Station.

I look back on my time as an evacuee as a happy time, but as for anyone home is best.

I spent the rest of the war in London. My schooling was very discordant due to bomb damage and lack of facilities.

People in authority do what they think is best at the time, but no one knows for sure what is best until after things have been done. The house that our family lived in throughout the war suffered no damage at all, and did not even lose a pane of glass though bombs fell all around, but the roof when a bomb fell nearby.

We were a family who spent late Summer Holidays hop picking so soon after returning to London in 1940 we went to Thompsetts Farm, Horsmonden, Kent.
Here I saw dogfights between the R.A.F. and the Luftwaffe. Many planes fell out of the sky. I vividly remember a British pilot parachuting to the ground and a British plane circling him until he was safely on the ground, then he zoomed back up to rejoin the battle.

We worked normally picking the hops while this was happening but occasionally had to take cover in ditches.
The London Blitz had already started when we got back home, so spent all our nights in the cellar for weeks on end.
All this time I was unable to attend school.

When the Blitz eased I tried to go to Middle Row School but discovered the school had been closed due to war damage. Eventually I was accepted in Bevington Road School W10 where I was taught until one day in June 1942. The class teacher announced that Middle Row school was now open and any one wishing to go there — could. Immediately nearly every pupil got up and made their way to Middle Row.

I spent the rest of the war in London except for Hop picking holidays. One of the farms on which we worked was Blest Farm Wateringbury adjoining West Malling fighter airfield. Quite an exciting place to be for a schoolboy during the war.

I started earning my living the year the war ended.

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