大象传媒

After queuing at the station in Eltham with gas masks and luggage labels, we arrived in Deal. However, there were so many of us that there weren't enough places to accommodate everyone. We spent most of the afternoon on the beach, listening to gunfire from across the Channel. I wasn't frightened at the thought of leaving home because I was used to visiting my elder sister, but for many it was their first time away from home.

After two weeks we moved to Folkestone, where our school took over a boys preparatory school, whose pupils had been evacuated elsewhere! At first, about twenty of us were living in a rather run down hotel on the front. Ten of us used to pile into one bed to play games. There was lots of heavy snow that year and it was hard work walking through it to school.

By May 1940, we used to lie on the grass at school and watch the fighters flying overhead. As the Germans approached it was no longer safe to be in Kent. We were packed onto another train. We were on the train all day - no corridors or loos, but no-one would use the seaside buckets provided.

We ended up in Abertillery, Monmouthshire. The welcome there was marvellous. The Mayor was on the platform and we walked to the village hall accompanied by a band. The streets were lined with people to welcome us. We had tea in the church hall, and were then inspected by families willing to take us. I was lucky enough to be chosen by a lovely family, along with my friend. The family had two children of their own, a girl about the same age as us and a younger brother.

We had to go to school on Saturday because we had to share the science facilities with the local secondary school, (we did get Mondays off!). The rest of the lessons were in rooms all over the place - above the Co-op, in church halls and in a chapel. This was a mining community, so we weren't short of coal, but we had to help carry it from the back door, where it was delivered, into the shed. Eventually, with our parents' permission, we were allowed to go down the mine while it was working. We even cut our own piece of coal. They were lovely people, great singers, I kept in touch with them until they died. I later took my own children to visit.

In July 1943 the LCC decided it was safe to bring the children back to London. No sooner had they returned than the buzz bombing began, but the children stayed anyway. I left school that term and returned to London.

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