大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Sylvia Perry a volunteer from 大象传媒 Essex on behalf off Brenda Paulding and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

It seems that most evacuees written about were children of younger, married couples who went away with their schools. There must have been many families like mine with children of ages ranging up to twenty years.

On the sunny Sunday when war broke out we children were taking turns on a friend鈥檚 new scooter while adults were talking nearby. Recent events in Spain caused severe air raids to be expected soon and be concentrated on London. Dad, who had been gassed and wounded in the Great War 鈥� to end all wars鈥� and knew what was likely to come our way, went indoors and removed the cross supports from the dining table. At bedtime I, aged three and the youngest of six, was installed with some dolls under it in my own personal shelter.

My brother, the eldest, was serving as a regular bandsman in India. My eldest sister was sent for safety to relations in Sunderland in the North East and the three middle sisters were evacuated with their schools. With two neighbours and their youngest children Mum and I went by bus to rented bungalows at Aldeburgh on the East Coast. A few days later our group were on the shingle behind the barbed wire when a ship was broken in two after hitting a mine. Several people died and we saw at close hand the survivors in oil-spattered remnants of clothing being brought ashore. This was the first lifeboat rescue of the war. Things were quiet at home and Mum was concerned about Dad as, despite being disabled, he travelled about for work and he needed proper food. After a few weeks we returned home and when there was some danger, no shelter having arrived, we took cover in a communal one at the corner of our street. Opposite there was a large public house 鈥楾he Royal Oak鈥� (now demolished) and the clientele was mixed and took some enduring! The damp, earthy smell on entering a shelter remains with me.

Soon a hole was dug for the Anderson shelter and when the siren went Mum took the heavy, brass candlesticks and picked up her large Fox鈥檚 Glacier Mints tin containing the important family documents and a torch to shepherd us into the garden. When we reached the shelter we had to step carefully down on to a stool placed inside the entrance. During lulls in hostilities my sisters came home and many sunny days were spent in that shelter singing the hits of the day from 6d songbooks. Our eldest sister came back from the dangers of a ship-building town even though home was likely to be as danger-filled but, following the flooding of the shelter, she took ill with T.B. and died. She was buried near enemy airmen who had bailed out from a raid and some objected to them being there but Mum said, 鈥淭hey are someone鈥檚 sons.鈥�

Then we got a Morrison Shelter in which we did jig-saws and played ping-pong and we also stood on it for a better view of aircraft overhead. During one of my spells back at home my brother was on Embarkation leave and he practised, among other things, the Funeral March. Mum said, 鈥淒on鈥檛 play that, son.鈥� At twenty-one he died in the Sicily invasion.

All of us had more than one experience of evacuation. I was only four when I was living with an all adult family in Wiltshire on a farm. I had sisters in the area but we were separated. One lived at the Manor House in charge of about ten children and was treated like Cinderella. I saw the one nearest in age on Saturday mornings to play together 鈥� I always cried when she had to go. She was the only one I ever shared a billet with and that was three years later in Macclesfield, Cheshire. My second eldest sister turned fourteen and left her childminding, came home and went to work. When a bomb dropped one lunchtime near her firm, Plesheys at Ilford, Mum rushed off by bus to see if she was alright and the house was deserted when I came in. Our back door was blown off three times and once fell across Mum鈥檚 back which bothered her for years afterwards. Dad served all the war as a sergeant in the Home Guard and by Direction Of Labour joined the staff of a mental hospital.

Besides looking after Dad and a lodger and working on munitions, Mum had a lot of travelling to do, visiting us in different parts of Britain. One sister in Aberdare in Wales was moved with her school there to Cheshire next door to us. This saved expense and time for Mum but as our sister went to senior school and had homework to do she never came to play with us. When we returned home at the end of the war I wondered who the stranger was sitting next to me at meals!

Before the war we had been described by a neighbour as 鈥渏ust one big, happy family鈥� 鈥� we learned that good things don鈥檛 last long.

Effects of the war lingered everywhere and when I left the house for my wedding ten years later, I tottered over planks across a large hole that suddenly appeared outside our front door where bomb disposal men were working.

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