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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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Evacuation Memories

by rykoba

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Archive List > Childhood and Evacuation

Contributed by听
rykoba
People in story:听
Mr and Mrs W. Nash ,Robin Nash and Joyce Nash
Location of story:听
Hastings.East Sussex
Background to story:听
Civilian
Article ID:听
A4451375
Contributed on:听
13 July 2005

In July 1940 my Father William (Billy) who was blind and gassed from the first world war, my mother and my sister Joyce were informed that there was to be a total evacuation of the town. My first memory of that day was spotting my dad drowning our 2 pet cats in the boiler in the scullery. doing this with tears in his sightless eyes.
The few vets that were in the town were evidently snowed under and there would have been no one to feed and look after them.
We set off by train with I believe, one case each and eventually arrived at Ilminster in Somerset after what seemed a never ending journey. The night was spent in the local Workhouse after I think we were given something to eat.
The next morning we were transported to a little country village called Sevington and were ushered into the village hall. We were all asked to sit down and a few minutes later local people began to arrive to run their eyes over us poor people. Looking back i've often thought that to them it was rather like a cattle market. There would be little conflabs and someone would point at a person or two and then be introduced and off they would go.
This continued until our family were the only ones left. After quite a discussion my mother was approached and was to;d that because we were a family and that my father was blind they had difficulty placing us, however there were two farmers who were friends who had agreed that if my Mum and Dad would go with one of them the other farmer would take us children. This was reluctantly agreed and we all went our seperate ways.
I must say that the farmerand his wife who took us children were wonderful and treated us as though we were their own.
My wife and I went to see them a few years back and they were delighted to see us but were disappointed to discover that I was'nt THE Robin Nash of 大象传媒 fame

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