大象传媒

This story was submitted to the site by Pat Yates of Age Concern Shropshire Telford & Wrekin on behalf of Dorothy Heighway & added with her permission She fully understands the site's terms & conditions.

Dorothy's family ran the New Inns pub in Madeley, Shropshire and because they had plenty of space there and her grandparents lived next door they were able to take in five evacuees. When she heard the bus load of children had arrived in town, Dorothy was very excited and also anxious for her family to hurry and meet it - afraid there would be no children left for them. They weren't too late! When her father walked in at tea-time he was a bit surprised to find five extra sitting round the table.

The four sisters and their brother - Mary, Jimmy, Annie, Winnie and Francis Roxborough - were from a family of twenty living in Bootle. Every weekend buses came from Liverpool bringing parents to visit their children and Mrs Roxborough often came with a toddler or a young baby.

The Heighway family had no trouble feeding the extra mouths because they kept sixteen pigs and the pub was also able to do some trading of alcohol for food. Lots of deals were done! The local mayor, for instance, would give them a whole cheese in exchange for a bottle of whisky. The Liverpool children found the country diet hard to get used to and coming from the city they were also puzzled by some of the local flora. One of them even tried to eat nettles, with painful results. The evacuees were full of tales of the mischief they got up to back home. They regularly went pinching sugar from the Tate & Lyle factory, cutting open the big sugar bags and taking home as much as they could carry.

Dorothy's family and the Roxboroughs obviously got on well together and kept in touch after the war. Her other grandmother, Granny Bowen, also lived in Madeley and she too looked after two evacuees = Sheila and George McCartney (no relation to Paul) Sheila and George kept in contact and years later attended Granny Bowen's funeral to pay their respects.

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