大象传媒

Part 1 of "TOM'S WAR" (Before Evacuation) can be found at A6470291.

Becoming an evacuee was one of those unpleasant times in my life but it was not without its enforced element of adventure.

My young sister and I had our cases packed hurriedly for us, gas masks slung round our necks in cardboard boxes on strings, and luggage labels tied to our coats. We waved goodbye to a weeping Mum and boarded the train with only a vague idea of our destination. The evacuation of the youngsters from the coastal towns was a much more hasty affair than the evacuation of London's children, we were moved out with less organisation for a different reason - almost a panic speed, hence the scarcity of information.

We were aware that we were supposed to be going to a place called Stafford, but so far as we were concerned, this could have been some place in America. The industrial Midlands would seem to be a rather unlikely location to choose as a refuge for thousands of children from enemy attack, but the years proved this to be a good choice for the town suffered only one air-raid in the whole war during which only one bomb caused any damage.

We were lucky to escape so lightly because Stafford contained some important war industries; English Electrics making tanks, 16MU of the RAF repairing damaged aircraft, Lotus and Delta footwear factory producing shells, Bagnall's locomotive works and Universal Grinding Wheel as well as the important railway junction on the main line from London to Liverpool and Glasgow.

Our rail journey lasted all day, crammed into the hot carriages with our tachers in charge, we must have devoured our packed meals as soon as we boarded the train. When we arrived at Stafford we were led in a long crocodile through the town- ironically - to the municipal meat market, how I remember the smell.

To do justice to the unfortunate Staffordians, upon whom we were dumped as an unwelcome addition to their community, they took us into their homes and cared for us as members of their own families. However, the shock of being paraded in ranks in the market while the propective fosterparents walked along and made their choices was a desolate feeling never to be forgotten.

My sister Sheila and I were eventually chosen by a pair of sisters together with another couple of kids to share their cramped cottage in Tenterbanks near to the river. My experience of those few weeks with the two sisters was unhappy. I am told that I was a reasonably pleasant child, and I cannot recall doing anything to annoy, maybe it was that the strange task of caring for a quartet of strange and lively children proved beyond their scope of tolerance, or it may have been a backlash of the choas of our initial descent onto the people. I was allocated a new home with an elderly homely widow, while my sister, still little more than a toddler, was taken by a family living in the village of Gnosall, six miles from Stafford. Thereafter I saw Sheila only on infrequent occassions; I was taken there to spend Christmas with her fosterparents who were related to my Mrs Tagg.

St George's School was evacuated en-bloc complete with staff and was established in the vacant buildings that had been the church school of St Mary. Our teachers had already been supplemented by older people called from retirement as the younger fellows were conscripted, but were a competent, if unorthodox group with a wide variety of experience to offer our boys. The addition of women teachers to a previously all-male staff called for some adjustment on our part but we managed quite well.

Our buildings were primitive, the five classrooms were each heated by a small openfire behind the teacher's desk and were disgracefully inadequate by today's standards, we were allowed to wear our overcoats as we sat at the long bench desks. Charles Dickens could have used this place for his novels and not seemed too modern.

The outside toilet for the whole school was bleak and used to freeze-up frequently in winter, it was, I believe the sole source of water for the whole school. There were no facilities for specialist teaching: for a few weeks we were granted the privilege of visiting the laboratories of Stafford Technical College for some lessons claimed to be of a scientific nature. I feel this was a severe shortcoming for my later life and livelihood and had to learn whatever Physics and Botany I could from books from the library, Chemistry was out of the question. Perhaps this experience of "help yourself" made me more reliant on my own resources and taught me to be an independent person.

A woodwork shop was loaned to us by a church near to the railway station and was popular with the boys even though it entailed a half-mile walk and another wasted half-hour there and back.

We had no gym, such PT as we had used to be conducted when the weather allowed in the playground, and was in military fashion of 'with me, begin.....' Football and cricket were made possible - courtesy of the English Electric's Sport and Welfare Club - on their pitches, but this again obliged us to make a long walk to the other end of the town.

School lunches meant for us some sandwiches in a paper bag or walking back to our billet for a meal. Despite rationing, our carers fed us well, sensible feeding probably brought us the gift of good health in later life, sugar was scarce so our teeth were given the chance to escape early decay; all my teeth to this day are my own. A reflection on sweets: as these were in short supply, we monopolised the chemist shops for cough sweets (we never suffered congestion), and even experimented with Exlax chocolate laxative until the results were judged to be too drastic!

Transport was by Shank's pony. We could not afford bikes even if they had been available, I do not recall being able to ride a bike until much later into my 'teens when I acquired a primitive boneshaker. The result of using our feet for walking kept us fit and gave me a taste for walking for pleasure as an adult. During my two and a half years living in Stafford I believe I boarded a bus on maybe half a dozen occassions, and then only for long distance visits to my fosterparents' relatives.

Spare time was largely a matter for our own initiative. We did not have public-organised pastimes so we went our own ways for our amusement. The cattle market consumed much enjoyable time. We 'helped' to drive cattle and sheep in the confines of the market premises, and sometimes through the town's streets to Rowland's Model Abattoir near to Stafford Gaol.

We were not encouraged to go in and watch the action; when we closed too near to see sheep being despatched we were deterred by a handful of wet offal hurled our way by the irritated butchers. Actions speak louder than words. People believe that BSE Mad Cow Disease is a modern idea, not so; we were quite used to seeing these cattle staggering, sliding and falling during their time in the pens before being hurried away for quick slaughter.

One of our favoured pastimes was Train Spotting. We had ample scope for this on our busy line, troop trains, tanks, cattle, fish and passengers came our way; we became experts from our special observation site near to the loco works. Our notebooks were compiled with care and were minutely checked-out at the library. We could talk with authority on 'Jubilees', 'Scots' and 'Patriots'.

I had the pleasure of teaching myself to swim in the muddy waters of the River Sowe, a little way upstream from the Gasworks and the Hopsital, before these establishments discharged their odourous products into the water. It was after we had been in Stafford for some time when the school was given the opportunity of using the facilities offered by the Royal Brine Baths to teach us to swim properly.

First reaction to the fact that seaside kids could not swim is one of surprise, but learning to swim off the beaches at Ramsgate would offer a most difficult set of problems; sharp waves, currents, deeply shelving water depth and lack of instructors. I have never conquered fear of the water even though I became a qualified Swimming Teacher and Life-Saving examiner in later life.

In years to come, I was to feel regret about the way in which my education suffered due to the effects of Hitler's war, what might have been, what I might have become if I had enjoyed the benfits of uninterrupted schooling. As it was, I had to go to night classes in order to achieve educational qualifications.

When old Mrs Tagg became infirm and was unable to care for me, I went to live with her son and his wife who were childless. Also with us lodged Sergeant George Cribbs of the RAF, his wife Christine and their baby, from Newcastle. They were a pleasant group and were kind emough to include me on their excursions, such as days out to Trentham Gardens (a large pleasure park near Stoke) and picnics at Cannock Chase. George reacted one day to me being cheeky to him by throwing me into a gorse bush, a painful surprise that taught me a valuable lesson, I watched my lip after that yet lost none of my admiration for him.

At about this time my mother came to live in Stafford in order to be near her brood, having herself been evacuated from Ramsgate; not living nearby but in frequent contact with us. She worked for a while as a barmaid at the Black Bear hotel, and later at the tank factory taken-over from the German Siemans Company by English Electric. Mum stayed in Stafford until the authorites considered that conditions were safe enough to permit civilians to return to Thanet, so, satisfying herself that her darlings were well established, she was happy to join Dad whose essential occupation kept him producing gas instead of going into the armed forces.

Cousin Pete and his mother came to Stafford from Wales to live. Pete attended our school for a while, then Aunt Lil married Ernie Law from Wolverhampton who worked at the Abrasives factory in Doxey. I used to spend occassional weekends with them at their council house on the outskirts of Stafford near the Common.

The boys became experts in the field of aircraft recognition and were keen observers of air movements in our area, able to identify dozens of different types of Allied planes. My highlight sighting came one sunny afternoon as I was digging in the school allotment garden. I heard a sound which I recognised as that of the unique note of a Harvard aircraft, soon the plane came into view flying straight and level at a couple of thousand feet, when suddenly it dived vertically - all the way - into the ground. Guards would not allow us to get near enough to see into the hole of the crash, it went a long way down.

Moving a couple of doors up the street to live with Mr and Mrs Budd was a good move for me as this couple had an only child, Alan, fine company for for a boy who had been for some time without other children in close contact. Alan Budd also had a superb Meccano set which I confess I monopolised and, under the benign eye of engineer Mr Budd, I learned much about levers, gears and structures - mechanics to come in to use when I became an adult.

The drab exterior of the house belied the warmth of the interior. My new foster mother produced wholesome food from limited resources and I was introduced to delicacies like pickled damsons.

Many years later as an airman, I revisited the Budd family briefly as I was a waiting embarkation for foreign service. Mrs Budd took me to the cellar and handed me a bottle asking me if I remembered it. Mystified, I listened as she explained that I had helped her to make it as a youngster. We drank the bottle between us before I departed for Iraq.

Relatives of the Budds lived on a farm at Seighford, some distance north of Stafford and I recall a visit there to see an airfield being constructed, encroaching on part of their premises. As time went by I discovered that this RAF station became an important Bomber Command base.

By 1943 the threat of German invasion had decreased and gradually the evacuees were reclaimed by their parents in Ramsgate, accepting the now-diminished risk of air attacks which happened only on a small scale with hit-and-run raids by lone aircraft. The boys attending St George's School in Stafford were now so few in number that the school was returned to Ramsgate and re-instated in its former premises which had escaped damage during our absence. So home again to a changed town.

Part 3 of "TOM'S WAR" - After Evacuation can be found at A6678048.

My sister Sheila's story "MY EVACUATION FROM RAMSGATE TO STAFFORD & GNOSALL" can be found at A6175640.

Story: This story has been submitted to the People's War site by Muriel Palmer (volunteer) Age Concern Shropshire Telford & Wrekin on behalf of Thomas SOLLY (author) and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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