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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Rachel Conway from Brighton and has been added to the website on behalf of Maureen Blakey (nee Goodyer) with her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

I was evacuated as part of ‘Operation Pied Piper’ to Goring-by-Sea but had come back to Tooting to stay with my Dad and Grandma. Once again I was on the move, Tooting wasn’t my safe haven anymore, all the schools were closed. It was decided to send me to Marlow, where my brother Owen was sent with school as an evacuee. I don’t know how that decision came about, as Gorringe Park was a boys school, so I was the only girl. I was seven years old, maybe if I was older it would have been more fun! I suppose in my Dad’s wisdom he thought that although I could not live with Owen at his billet I would have one of my own family nearby to watch out for me.

The boys school was on the causeway near the Marlow bridge, it was a former Sunday school and is now All Saints Church Hall. There was an infant school next door for boys and girls where I had my lessons. At playtime, for some very strange reason the evacuees were not allowed to play in the school playground. We had a section of our own in a park across the road (Higginson Park). Two teachers would stand in the middle of the road to see that we crossed to our play area safely. I’d really like to know who thought this idea up — why couldn’t the evacuees mix? It felt as if we were infectious.

We were quite happy to have the park as our recreation area, although for me it had a downside with all the fun of swings, slide and roundabout. Walking passed the swings one day, not paying attention, a swing came back at me - knocking me out and causing a cut above my left eyebrow. Owen saw what happened, came running over and carried me in to school, bleeding all over him. I was then taken to the local cottage hospital and had a couple of stitches put into the wound.

By 1942 dad had re-married and moved down to Farnham in Surrey — as the youngest member of the family and being accident prone they decided I should come home to the safety of their care in a lovely and peaceful place.

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