大象传媒

My Memories of Being Evacuated

I can recall clearly the day in September 1939 sitting in the coach outside Wix鈥檚 Lane school in Battersea looking out of the window at the mothers weeping and drying their eyes on hankies as they waved us goodbye, I was nine years old. At the start of our journey I didn鈥檛 then know where we were going to, it turned out to be the village of Wargrave near Reading. We arrived and were brought into the village hall and sat on benches while the village ladies came to pick which children they wanted to take home. I was almost the last one left and began to get really worried that nobody wanted me. The reason I had not been picked was one of the organizers, Mrs Critcher had already chosen me so we were unable to leave the hall until all the children had gone. I can remember walking along side of Mrs Critcher while she wheeled her large bicycle down school lane eventually stopping at number one Victoria Road that was to be my new home. I also remember laying in bed that first night crying and looking out of the window thinking how strange it was to be in a different home with people I had never even seen before, I am sure other evacuees must of felt the same. It was a nice house, in the dining room was an old black lead cooking range where Mrs Critcher who I called auntie baked cooking apples which I really enjoyed. In the evenings we listened to the radio and I can remember getting upset when Vera Lynn sang one of her songs, which started 鈥楪oodnight Children everywhere your mummy thinks of you tonight鈥�
The village school stood next to a wheat field where poppies also grew. The school was too small to accommodate all the children in one go so the evacuees attended in the morning and the village children went in the afternoon. Later a hostel was opened up near the village so that the evacuees could attend for a whole day. All the girls in my class were given balls of white wool to knit operation socks for soldiers, which by the time we had picked up all the dropped stitches must have finished up black !
I have so many memories of that time, I remember picking Blue Bells and Primroses in the woods at the top of Victoria Road. Also the little dairy opposite our house where you could buy fresh milk by the jug and milk was scooped out from large churns that stood outside. Behind the dairy there was a lovely apple orchard where for the first time I saw apples growing on trees, not piled up on a London barrow ! I also remember buying sweets from the front parlour of a small house two or three doors up the road from us, sweets known as 鈥楤uzz Bars鈥� were my favourite. I can also recall standing outside the village blacksmith watching with amazement the horses being shod and wondering why the red-hot horseshoes didn鈥檛 burn the horse鈥檚 feet.
One of my strongest memories is of going into Reading Christmas shopping and buying a comb and a hanky for sixpence in Woolworths for my two older sisters. Being the first Christmas away from my family I really wanted to go home and spend it with them but I was made to write that I preferred to stay in Wargrave. This was something that upset me because I wasn鈥檛 allowed to write what I wanted to say, Mrs Critcher always read my letters home before they were posted.
While staying with Mrs Critcher I had to attend church twice every Sunday as well as going to chapel in the afternoon. I was lucky though that I had two friends from London in the village and we used to play on the recreation ground at the back of the house which I have been told is still there today.
One of the biggest events in the village I remember was performing country dancing in the hall of a large house which I believe stood near the end of the high street, the thing I do remember most is it鈥檚 garden went down to the rivers edge. The winter of 1939 was very cold with lots of snow, and when it thawed the river Thames flooded over the fields and roads so you could just see the tops of the trees protruding out of the water.
I, like many other evacuees returned home to London in 1940 when the summer school holidays began. There had not been many air raids so we thought it was safe to stay, unfortunately by September the blitz had started. My mother wrote to Mrs Critcher to see if she would take me back but by then she had taken someone else so I spent the rest of the war at home. When my mother died in 1991 while going through her possessions I found that she had kept some of the letters I had written to her and my sisters from Wargrave which I still have, together with a photo of myself in the garden of Victoria Road. I am hoping to go back to Wargrave soon although I am looking forward to visiting again I also have misgivings as to whether I am doing the right thing, I know it has changed a lot and I wonder if it will spoil the memory I have of such a quiet little village all those years ago.
Since writing these memories my son and I returned to Wargrave on Friday 16th September 2005 and as I expected it has changed and grown quite a lot like so many other places. The village hall was where I remembered it being, so too was the blacksmiths, which has a plaque on the wall 鈥淭he olde Blacksmiths Shoppe鈥� at the foot of School Lane. The large house where we practiced country dancing must have been Wargrave Hall and Wargrave Chapel, which we found, looked very different, I thought it was in the high street. The small group of houses where I lived in Victoria Road appeared to have had their numbers changed, one is now eighty six where an extension has now been added and the small dairy opposite is now the A1 store where I noticed at the back of the shop one apple tree remains. The village school as expected had been extended and certainly isn鈥檛 surrounded by fields anymore.
Going back I鈥檓 pleased to say hasn鈥檛 spoilt the memory of Wargrave but I will always remember it as it was sixty-six years ago.

Mrs Alice Sykes.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.