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Circumstances force a change of mind about evacuating

David Martel interviewed by Becky Kendall of Radio Guernsey at the Guernsey Museum March 2005, transcribed from CD by John David Nov 17th 2005

I was thirteen, nearly fourteen, when the evacuation came, and we had to go to the schools, and I went to St Sampson’s School at the time, and I had to report there to evacuate with the children, and for some unknown reason the boat didn’t come and we all got sent back home, and in the end my parents decided no, we wouldn’t go. And in the end they decided to go as a family, we went as four children of a family, because my eldest brother, he was of military age, he decided he was going to go anyhow, with his friends, they went, four of them, and they joined the forces over there. But my mother took the four remaining children down to the boat, and we went on this boat, and my father was going to follow as soon as the postman had been with the post, because he wanted to collect the bit of cash that was coming from shipping tomatoes at the time, and he was going to meet us on the boat. After about an hour on the boat, my mother must have panicked a bit and decided we’d all come off the boat, so she took the four of us off the boat…
I………. So you were on the boat ready to go…
Oh, we were on the boat, suitcase and gas mask and everything…
I………. All set!
All set, and in the end she decided she couldn’t go through with it, probably she didn’t want to leave her home, whatever. She brought us off the boat, and we came back home. Fortunately, the problem was, my father hadn’t left home yet, because he could have left home, and we’d have missed each other, he could have been sitting on the boat and gone, and we’d have been left here.
I………. Funny to think that you were waiting for everyday things — for the post to arrive —
Well of course you must realise it was a family of four children, and money was tight, he was going from here to England with no cash, it wasn’t a question of going to the bank and getting a hundred pound, there was no cash available, so he was waiting for the bit that might come through that was the reason it was done that way, in the end we stayed here throughout the Occupation because that was the last boat.

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