大象传媒

A Canning Town Evacuee 鈥� Part 2

Evacuated For the Second Time

On arriving at Banbury Station in Oxfordshire in May 1940 we were split into boys and girls. Brothers and sisters were not split up, but went with the eldest child. There were two buses, one went to Clayton and the other, which I was on, went to Cropredy.

It took us about twenty five minutes to arrive at the village hall where we were herded in like sheep, followed by the people of the villages who picked one or two boys depending on what they could cope with.

Mr and Mrs Hill picked me and took me home, which was about two minutes away. They had a baby girl of about four months old called June and they lived at number 5 in a row of eight council houses that were in two blocks of four. I remember that other evacuated boys stayed at number 1 and number 8.

Although the houses were only about four years old, it only had one cold-water tap in the kitchen sink. The toilet was in a brick shed with a large bucket under the wooden seat that went from one side to the other and the bucket had to be emptied three times a week.

The garden was about sixty to seventy five feet in length, about twenty feet wide and split into three equal lengths of which the two furthest from the house were used for emptying the bucket in a hole dug about two feet square and deep.

Believe me it worked, because we had some lovely vegetables from the garden all the time I was there!

Just imagine in this day and age, bath night once a week, having a bath in a bath eighteen inches wide by four feet long and about one foot high, with hot water boiled up in large saucepans and kettle heated up in a paraffin cooker. Mr and Mrs Hill, June and myself had to time it just right and in the winter you have to be fast because the water gets cold quickly.

No central heating in those days, only one small fire and plenty of warm coats to keep warm. Hard times they were, I doubt the younger people of today would survive in those conditions, so thank your lucky stars for progress I say.

After a few weeks, things began to settle down. We all made friends with local children and some older girls up to around the age of twenty who were always a good laugh. Most of the men were away on active service.

The older girls were always giggling about their love life, not that we knew anything about love at twelve years old, we were totally unenlightened compared to kids today but we would always laugh along with them anyway.

Very soon I found myself ways of making a few coppers each week. I cleaned chicken houses every Saturday morning. There were about forty chicken houses that had about thirty chickens to a house and a floor that slid in and out. The women would collect all the eggs twice a day and cleaned, packed and sent them daily to the main distribution centre in Banbury. Smelly old job, but it was money in your pocket, about one old penny for a morning鈥檚 work.

We eventually went to the local school for lessons (for kids over ten years old) where we were taught how to grow food in the school鈥檚 own allotment. We grew lot of carrots, green peas, cabbages, beetroot, rhubarb, lettuce and onions but only a few potatoes though.

Not only did we grow them, we learnt how to pick them and four kids every day helped to cook them. We cooked decent fresh food, no foreign packet rubbish. In my opinion this is something that is sadly missing from today鈥檚 schooling.

In season, after dinner we used to go to 鈥榮pud picking鈥�, where we pulled potatoes and carrots and picked beans and peas. We were paid three pence each afternoon, not much by today鈥檚 standards, but a two ounce bar of chocolate was only one penny, kit kat only a half penny, mars bars one penny and sherbet dips a half penny etc. It paid for a month鈥檚 supply of sweets, so our payment wasn鈥檛 so bad really.

Also we picked strawberries when in season and we learnt about the land and how the earth and nature work together, very educational. Much better than what the kids are taught today as far as I鈥檓 concerned. We loved it and the money we earned was very handy.

Whilst at the village school we also collected train names, as the railway ran just by the school on an embankment and when the 11.55am train passed the school to Birmingham, I was allowed to stand outside the school so we could see it go by and collect the number, name and the company it belonged to. Most of the trains were GWR, LNER, LMS and occasionally Southern Railways. It was all part of education therapy as you learnt a lot about places, people, famous halls, granges, castles and monarchs.

Once the alarm went for an air raid and a German JU88 was following the railway, saw a bridge that crossed the road and dropped a bomb that landed the other side of the embankment. Luckily no one was hurt thank goodness and hardly any damage was done.

One of the signalmen who worked in the signal box at Cropredy was also the local barber, and often Saturday mornings were kids haircut day, so we would go there for our haircut.

While there we learnt about how signal boxes work. The levers take a lot of power to move them and the different boxes along the line talk to each other by a series of dings on the signal bell. We found it all quite interesting really. All these jobs have unfortunately gone now, all done by electronics.

On the way to school I passed a big house where I found another job for myself. They wanted an honest lad to do menial work morning and evening on the way to and from school. In the morning I had to clean out the fire and re lay it for use in the evening, then clean shoes for the lady and master from the previous day, and on my way home I would fetch coal or logs and chop the wood for the fire the next day. I had to do extra on a Friday to last the weekend.

That鈥檚 where I learnt to clean and polish shoes properly and chop wood without losing my fingers. I earned one shilling a week, about ten pence today. All part of growing up.

Our evacuee school (the church hall) was next door to the local bakery and another way I used to help pass the time away was to get a small loaf hot from the oven, cut it in half, get a couple of ounces of real home made butter and slap it in the middle, then let it all melt and cool. Eating it was a most pleasurable experience, lovely believe me. I did that every day six days a week for a couple of years. It made me a strong lad and I still love the smell of fresh bread, reminds me of those good old days.

To get my loaf I helped the baker to weigh the flour and yeast, boil water to the right temperature which was 106 degrees, then pour it on the flour and yeast as it went around a big drum. I would then keep mixing the flour for different loaves etc.

I remember having some spare time to take a horse up to the next village where the farr鈥檌er was to get it shoed, which was a laugh because the owner placed a halter on to the horse, put me on its back with no saddle and hit it across the rump and shouted 鈥済o on鈥�. It then ran until I fell off and it trotted off with me vainly trying to catch it up. I went back to the farr鈥檌er where the horse had already gone back to and it was given four new shoes.

I got on the horse again and tried to ride back to the farm, but I fell off and again I couldn鈥檛 catch it. When I got back to the farm the farmer said, 鈥淭he horse has been back for half an hour, what happened to you鈥�? I told him what happened and he said, 鈥渢hat鈥檚 why we let you ride it bare back, its easier to fall off without hurting yourself. The horse always does that to show you he is the boss鈥�.

Next time I walked both ways to teach him a lesson. It was a long walk of two and a half miles each way, all for three pence but it was good exercise.

Hay making was hard work at harvest time but very enjoyable all the same. I would ride on the old carthorses as they came back to the farm on their own; I was only there to open the farmyard gate so they could get to the stables. The farmer鈥檚 wife used to come in and take all the collars, reigns, girth strap and the rest of the horses鈥� equipment off.

Yet another job I had was to deliver telegrams to places within a two mile radius on the bike I was supplied with, quite a nice little earner getting three pence per mile there and back.

It is ironic that when I left school later at fourteen years old, I went to Whitechapel Post Office to be a telegram boy but I refused to take it as it only paid 12/6 per week which is about sixty two pence, and it meant getting a trolleybus to Plaistow and then a train to Whitechapel which would have meant working for nothing by the time I paid out for fares six days a week.

At the village school we had woodwork lessons once every week. We had to go behind the local pub called The Brassnose Inn and upstairs to a long barn that was fully supplied like a modern school, having about thirty benches and all the chisels, plains, pincers, screwdrivers etc. Also three lathes where we could make round lamp stands and legs etc. Here we learnt how to make dovetails as well as other joints and I got quite good at it too, getting good marks all the time. We used very few nails, mainly joints or glue.

Behind the post office in Cropredy there used to be a firm that was a carpenters, wheelwrights, blacksmiths and toolmakers etc. I worked there in my spare time when they were open and what an education that was! I learnt more in that place than I ever did anywhere else in my life. That has stood me in good stead and I鈥檓 glad to have known the men who worked there. They were Albert and Arthur, two brothers from Great Burton, which is the next village on the way to Banbury.

I enjoyed helping them and learned to be a small time blacksmith. I would still love to be a blacksmith, hard work but very rewarding. I learned how to make nuts and bolts, and put threads on them among other things. In the woodwork department I learned how to make coffins, bend the sides to shape with hot water, thin grooves, chaffer the wood for farm carts, make spokes for wheels and put the rims on when the wheel is finished.

It is very rewarding when a farmer orders a cart for the farm and about twelve weeks later when the two brothers and I see the cart move off with the horse and the farmer says 鈥渢hanks, a good job that鈥�.

I wished at the time that I had stayed there; I liked it there that much. It is very interesting working with your hands and making things, a nice feeling giving great satisfaction saying to yourself 鈥淚 made that鈥�. Nothing like that happens today!

While in Cropredy I also learned how to fish properly, noting where the shade is on the river and judging if the water is deep enough for fish. I once caught three fish for breakfast.

One day though I was gutting and cleaning the fish for the first time under the watchful eye of my foster Dad. The experience put me off fishing for years and I still hate cleaning fish now. I don鈥檛 like eating fish if I have to clean them myself.

My foster parents said house rules were to be obeyed unless permission was asked and agreed before hand. For instance I had to be indoors in winter by 8.30pm and by 9.30pm in summer, no excuses whatsoever. Breaking the rules meant no tea or supper the next day and indoors one hour earlier. It only happened once in my two and a half years stay, not bad considering the many near misses I had.

One time I did not like my tea, which was cheese, onion and milk cooked on a plate with two slices of toast. I don鈥檛 mind all these things but not cooked together on the same plate, I don鈥檛 know why. It was then dished up to me for breakfast, dinner and tea for two days but I still refused it so I was never given it again in all the time I was there. However, I did apologise in the end because I had survived on my daily loaf from the bakery and apples.

Although I seemed to work a lot of the time, I still found time to play and enjoy myself. Us boys were always going around in gangs, half of which was girls. One day one of the girls was walking across the bridge on the outside of the railways and she fell off straight into the canal that ran through the village. Luckily I remembered where a large pole was, so we pulled her out as quickly as possible and took her home.

About an hour later a policeman knocked on our front door and asked to see me. I thought I was in for a good hiding at least, but he asked me to explain what happened, and after I told him he said the girl was his daughter and it was lucky I remembered where the pole was, as she couldn鈥檛 swim a stroke. He then thanked me and gave me one pound. Just goes to show doesn鈥檛 it.

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