大象传媒

鈥淵ou鈥檒l be home again by Monday鈥� said my mother, as I stood crying on the platform at Kings Cross Station. It was Friday 1st September 1939. It was, in fact, to be many months before I was home again, and two and a half years before I came back home to stay. I would never return to the house where I had been born eleven and a half years before and where we occupied two rooms, as early in 1940 my parents were allocated a long-awaited Council flat. So many people were leaving London that flats were readily available. They even had a choice and one which my dad refused because it was dirty, was later bombed.

We had been preparing for this war that still hasn鈥檛 going to happen, for a long time. For the past week I had been attending my new school in Islington, but not for lessons; merely to await the dreaded confirmation that we were being evacuated. My mother accompanied me to school during this week and we just sat and waited all day and then went home in the evening, until that never to be forgotten Friday when the signal came for the departure of the pupils and teachers 鈥� to鈥︹��.we knew not where.

For months the issuing of gasmasks had been taking place and the fitting of blackout curtains was compulsory in all homes. I had that year passed the 鈥淪cholarship鈥� and been rigged out in my new school uniform, for which we had gone to the post Office and taken the money out of my Post Office Savings Account and I felt very proud to be going to the grammar school.

A distant cousin (Audrey) who was fifteen years of age, attended the same school, but she was on holiday in Somerset and arrangements were to be made for the many girls in a similar position to join us later, if necessary.

So there we stood on the platform with our suitcases, gas masks, packed lunch and food we had been issued to hand to our hosts. This I know included a tin of corned beef but what else I cannot remember. Eventually all the checking of lists was completed and we were installed in the carriages with our teachers. Our tearful farewells had been said and the train departed.

We were obviously travelling north from Kings Cross and we asked our teacher where she thought we were going. At first she had no idea but as time went by she thought we were at first in Bedfordshire and later Northamptonshire. We did not stop at any stations and in any event the names of stations had been removed as had signposts and anything that might have been of assistance to an invading enemy. Eventually the train stopped and we soon discovered that we were at Kettering.

After much discussion with local organizers, we were taken in groups to various roads in the centre of the town. Local people had put their names down to take evacuees and our escorts began to knock at front doors. Unfortunately some people who had said they would take evacuees obviously didn鈥檛 really think it would happen and they did not open the door. However, they were in the minority and eventually all the children in my group were placed 鈥� except me! Many people had agreed to take two so, of course, siblings were kept together and being on my own (I was an only child) I was left, feeling very sorry for myself. It was getting late and darkness was falling when a very kind lady who had two or three children of her own and had taken in two evacuees said she would take me too, until the following morning. What a chaotic night in that poor lady鈥檚 house, but somehow she manager to produce food for us using that which we had brought and found makeshift beds.

The following day I was taken to a house further along the road, where an elderly batchelor and his spinster sister lived. They had agreed to take me in and also Audrey when she arrived. It was a Victorian house, rather dark, and I was given a small bedroom which contained a bed and a wash-stand - I don鈥檛 remember any other furniture.

Our school was to share the school building of the local girls grammar school. The evacuees attended from 8 a.m. until 10 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. the Kettering girls taking the middle part of the day. We also had the use of a local hall where we could do homework and various other activities, supervised by the teachers.

My host, Miss York, was a rather fat lady who always wore smocks. She soon told me that she was in love with the Doctor and within a few days of my arrival decided that I was ill and must stay in bed. The reason for this was that she could request the doctor to call and see me every day which he seemed quite happy to do, though I鈥檓 sure the affection was not reciprocated. On the walls of my bedroom were thirteen framed pictures and as the bed was against the wall I was always afraid that one of the pictures would fall on me in the night but it never did.

I never saw inside the bedrooms of my hosts but at the rear of the house was a large oblong shaped room, packed with heavy furniture, the walls being lined with huge pictures of royalty and there was also a gramophone with a trumpet which the dear lady told me she was going to send to the troops. The room was never used. The house contained no bathroom.

During my six months there I never saw any visitors come to the house, or was aware that they had any relatives, certainly no visitors ever called whilst I was at home. Mr York owned a shoe factory in Northampton and on one occasion he took me there in his car, but I only waited outside in the car whilst he went inside for a short time.

After two or three weeks Miss York decided that I was recovered. Whether anyone came to check on my absence from school I don鈥檛 know, but if they did she must have had a convincing story. However, she decided that I was delicate and must wear combinations and told me to write to my mother saying that she must buy some for me. My poor mother traipsed from shop to shop to find those dratted combinations and how I loathed wearing them.

I was fed quite well. Each day a local lady came in to cook lunch and I presume do housework and laundry. Every day without fail lunch alternated between lamb chops and sausages, except on Sundays when dinner was taken in the evenings. However, I was given a meager sandwich at lunch time and then told I couldn鈥檛 have much in the evening because it was bad to go to bed on a full stomach 鈥� so Sunday was a bit of a hungry day.

In due course Audrey arrived and had to share my little bed. Sadly Miss York took a dislike to her and did some unkind things, such as getting the daily help to make a lovely apple pie and then saying that only I might eat it, which I had to do, over the space of a few days, with Audrey watching.

Audrey had her hair bobbed with a fringe which was getting in her eyes but she was forbidden to go to the hairdresser to get it cut, so she stood in front of the mirror with a pair of nail scissors and cut it herself 鈥� rather wavily! However, she was allowed to go to the slipper baths occasionally but I was only permitted, on account of being 鈥渄elicate鈥� to go with her once during our whole stay.

As the winter of 1939/40 approached that house and especially our little bedroom became very cold. We were made to pour the washing water out of the jug into the basin over night and on some mornings ice had formed on the surface 鈥� to say we had a lick and a promise would be an exaggeration!

We were told at school that we must keep to the main roads as far as possible, but on one dark evening coming home from school we took a side road. It had been snowing very heavily and suddenly the snow slipped from a roof and completely buried me. Audrey managed to dig me out but my umbrella was never retrieve and I was wet to the skin. When we got home Miss York refused to listen to our story and insisted that we had been snowballed by local boys. The inside of my Wellington boots was wet for weeks.

Then came the time when we went up to bed in the dark, (because of the blackout we couldn鈥檛 put a light on in the hall) and half way up the stairs we fell over the gramophone. Miss York rushed out from the sitting room and said 鈥淚 knew you鈥檇 go meddling with that, I put it there a-purpose to trap you鈥�.

A couple of times my mother came for the day on a Sunday, but she was never invited to the house and just had to take us to a local restaurant for lunch; when she had gone I felt very miserable. Christmas 1939 was, of course, spent with this couple and at the end of Christmas Day this dear lady said to me 鈥渨ell, it鈥檚 been a nice Christmas鈥� at which I burst into tears and said 鈥渋t鈥檚 been the most miserable Christmas I鈥檝e ever had鈥� 鈥� I鈥檝e regretted those unkind words ever since because I really think she thought it had been pretty good.

At about that time we realized that this poor soul could neither read nor write and she would dictate letters for us to write to our parents, saying how happy we were, and we would write at the bottom 鈥淢iss York told me to say this鈥�.

By early March 1940 we felt it was time to move on and asked for a change of billet, but when nothing happened we wrote to our parents saying that if we weren鈥檛 moved we were coming home. Quite soon we were found a place just on the outskirts of town, where evacuees had not been placed in the first instance and what a contrast.

Before we left the old place we decided to have a clear out, as having spent a Christmas and birthday there we had all sorts of boxes and tins from our presents, which we put in the dustbin. However, Miss York said we must take it all with us, that Audrey had come there under false pretences because she was not really my cousin (her aunt was married to my uncle) 鈥� how she found out I shall never know, so we arrived at our new home and immediately had to fill their dustbin. They were a young couple, not long married, with a new bungalow and were so kind to both of us and our parents and, in fact, everyone they came in contact with. Our friendship lasted until they both died in their nineties just a few years ago.

That summer of 1940 we had so much fun. Our hosts had invited us to call them Auntie Fay and Uncle John and really they couldn鈥檛 have treated nieces any better. John was always playing tricks on us and even when I saw him in his nineties he said 鈥渄o you remember when I hung Audrey鈥檚 knickers on the gate with a 鈥渇or sale鈥� notice on them鈥�. One time when we were watering the garden we ran riot with the hosepipe and all ended up soaked to the skin.

They had a big garden and an allotment so there was always plenty of fresh produce to eat and Fay was an excellent cook. John worked at a shoe factory and to earn extra money he stoked their boilers on a Sunday and I loved to go with him.

Of course there were some bad times during the two years I was there, like the night we stood in the garden and watched the glow from fires in the distance. The following morning we learned that Coventry had taken a terrible hammering.

Audrey matriculated and went home to start work; our beloved John was called up, into the Military Police.

On the bright side 鈥� a girl in my form at school 鈥� Irene 鈥� had been billeted in a bungalow opposite and we became close friends. When we both returned to London we lost touch, but a couple of years ago my daughter tracked Irene down through Friends Reunited, she was still living in Islington, I in Stanmore. We started corresponding and in due course she and her husband came to see us and now we talk endlessly on the telephone!

Before John went into the army he and Fay decided that I needed a bicycle. They used to cycle to see her parents in a village a few miles away and it was difficult if I could not go with them; the bus ran only twice week. They obtained a bike which my parents paid for and a man down the road taught me to ride. I found that I really enjoyed this form of transport and continued to cycle for many years after the war.

After John had gone we tried to continue with the allotment and decided that we would harvest the potatoes. We dug them and put them in a sack which we put on Fay鈥檚 bike, but pushing it back home the sack burst and potatoes were spread far and wide, so that was the end of the allotment and it was passed to someone else for the duration.

At about that time Fay joined the ARP (Air Raid Precautions) and sometimes did nightwork in a first aid post in town. On those night I stayed with Irene. Her host worked nights at Corby so his wife and daughter (a couple of years younger than us) were pleased to have our Company. This dear lady was less than houseproud, we often slept four to her double bed and I suspect her husband got in it in the morning as we got out but she was always kind and we kids didn鈥檛 care too much.

One terrible thing happened in October 1940. I saw that Fay had received a letter from my mum, which was on the mantelpiece and I glimpsed the word 鈥淩eg鈥� sticking out of the top of the envelope. I would never have dreamed of reading someone else鈥檚 mail, but reasoned that mum would not have written to Fay about Reg unless something had happened to him and I worried a great deal. Then a couple of days later Fay told me that my aunt and uncle and their two little girls aged 10 and 8 had been killed in an air-raid, leaving just Reg, who was 12. He was injured but survived and now lives in Australia. It must have been dreadful for her to pluck up the courage to tell me and I was extremely upset as they were very dear to me.

At this time an incident with a P.E. teacher at school resulted in my having a broken arm, which was not diagnosed for a week. Fay had taken pity on an old lady whose daughter wanted to get her out of London during the air-raids and I had to give up my bed to her and sleep on a campbed.. I was in terrible pain during that week and when eventually Fay took me to hospital and my arm was X-Rayed and put in plaster it was such a relief. The lady was less than kind to me, told me she hated children and made herself very unpleasant to all of us. One day John had brought a cauliflower in from the garden which she insisted on cooking whole. When it was on our plates we were discovering an awful lot of caterpillars. No-one said a word 鈥� John was throwing his in the fire and the rest of us were lining the edges of our plates with them! She was one of those people who could not be told anything and would not take the advice given to divide it up and wash it in salt water because it had come straight from the garden and not from Covent Garden. Finally she became so difficult that Fay had to ask her to leave.

Mum had said that when I was 14 I could come home for good, unless there were a lot more air-raids. So on 14th February 1942 Fay escorted me home, and that was the end of my evacuation but the war was far from over and that鈥檚 another story.

As I鈥檝e said no-one could have been kinder to Audrey and me. They always made our parents extremely welcome and after John went in the army mum would often come and stay. Their son was born just after the war and we are still in touch with him and his family.

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