大象传媒

Three For The Price Of Two

My earliest recollection of being evacuated was in March 1940, when my two sisters and I were evacuated with our school from Notting Hill, West London, we were taken by coach on the long journey to a small village called Stoke St Gregory which is in Somerset, my eldest sister was 9 years old, I was almost 8 and my youngest sister was not yet 5 years old, so off we went into the unknown.
Arriving at Stoke St Gregory in the early evening it was already dark, we were taken into the village hall where refreshments had been laid on for us tired and weary children, after we had been fed and watered it was time to go to our new homes, a number of the villagers were waiting at the hall to collect their evacuees but not so us, we were among the last to leave the reason being that we had been allocated to an elderly couple who were unable to collect us as they were some distance from the hall and they had no transport, when most of the other children had gone off to their billets we were taken by the billeting officer to our new home.
When we got there an elderly lady opened the door ready to greet her new charges but she was in for a shock when she saw three forlorn little faces looking up at her, I think my eldest sister and I realised all was not well as the billeting officer and the lady were in deep discussion. Apparently two weeks earlier he had asked the lady if she would take any evacuees, she said she would like to take two little girls, the billeting officer said would you take Dorothy James and Winnie Bird, thinking that she was agreeing to take two unrelated girls she said that would be fine, but now there were three little faces looking at her, she said would take all three for that evening but he would have to return the following day to pick
me up and find me another billet, as she did not have room for me, when he arrived the following day she said she was not prepared to split up a family so she would get another bed and we could all stay, and stayed we did for over three years,( thanks nan ).
We had a very happy time in Stoke St Gregory, the village hall became our new school, with our own teachers from London, this went on for about three years or so until our numbers diminished to such an extent that we were eventually integrated into the village school. They were happy carefree days away from the horrors of war torn London, to be honest we did not realise there was a war going on, except for our miserable sweet ration but there was an abundance of fruit you just helped yourself.
Our parents visited us on several occasions coming down from London on weekend visits, one particular occasion which I remember so very well was when we were allowed to go to Taunton station to meet them, we were standing on the platform waiting the arrival of their train when a troop train pulled in and stopped in the platform , I believe it was full of Americans and all the windows were down, one of the G Is called out to us, he was holding out a tin cup and pointing to a water tap on the wall just behind us I ran over to him took his cup filled it with water and quickly took it back to him, within seconds both my sisters and I were scurrying backwards and forwards across the platform filling bottles, tin mugs, billycans in fact any article which would hold water, this went on for about ten minutes or so until the train moved off, and we were absolutely exhausted, but it was all worth while as we were now loaded with all manner of goodies, wrapped sugar lumps, malted milk tablets, lifesavers, and chewing gum, in fact every thing the heart could desire I almost forgotten that my parents would be arriving on the next train.
My sisters and I returned to London in the late summer of 1944 having been away from our home for four and half years, just as the V 2 rockets were beginning to fall.

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