大象传媒

Daphne Warburton is willing to have her story entered on to the People's War website and agrees to abide by the House Rules.

Questions answered in this text were put to Mrs Warburton by Annabel Holland, her great niece.

1) Why were you evacuated?

To join my new school, King's Warren County School, in September 1940 or obtain a Junior County Scholarship aged 11.

2) Where were you evacuated from and where did you go?

From the edges of London/Kent (side slope of Shooters Hill) last few roads of (upper) Plumstead where Greater London became Kent.

In September 1940 I went to Maidstone, Kent. In September 1941 the whole school was transferred to Bedford.

3) Were you happy?

Mostly not too happy. As an evacuee, I was "free" i.e. allowed to go out. My parents were very "Victorian" and I had to be a "lady". We did not play outside our own house and garden and on Sundays could not play board games, or skip or use a ball. A doll could be played with or a "good" book (e.g. Bible) could be read. Suddenly there weren't any rules and I could roam freely, explore, play with non-family members. I enjoyed that and the new experiences but it was upsetting to be away from my "normal" life.

4) Did you go with your brothers and sisters?

No. In October 1940 the bombing around our home was so bad that my father, Charles, Stewart Spencer Kenward (then 35 born 12/12/1904, who volunteered for the Air Force but was too deaf so had to do war work) sent our mother (Christabella Caroline Kenward, nee Gaurd born 15/10/1906, nearly 33 in September 1939) with Roy aged 10, Rosemary aged 8 and Yvonne aged nearly 4, to friends (the Harris family) in Kettering, Northants, who had offered 2 rooms in their largish comfortable home. Our youngest, Geoffrey, was born in 1949 after the war.

5) What family were you evacuated to?

i) A late middle aged couple. She became ill. The Freemans Maidstone, Kent.

ii) A youngish couple with 2 children. He was very violent to his wife and we (a friend Norah and I) had to be moved. The Clews. Maidstone, Kent.

iii) A fireman of about 35 and his wife of about 45. She was very "spinsterish" and doted on the small dog which had a human's bed and bedroom and was put to bed and tucked up like a child. I didn't approve! They were kind in their way but very boring and didn't talk to me much. Charlie and Dora West. Maidstone, Kent.

iv) A very old lady and her unmarried yougest daughter, Olive (aged 70 plus and 40 plus?) They had been forced to take an evacuee. They were very unwilling so cold towards me though not unkind. I greatly disliked being there. My hair was washed in soap powder (?Persil) and still gave trouble till 1947. The Martins. They couldn't cope with a high spirited child and I was moved. Bedford.

v) A centre for evacuees with, temporarily, no foster home. It was a huge, old house with 3 evacuee girls and about 10 boys, all ages, and was very great fun! There was a matron and resident, lovely old couple (cook/caretaker) surnamed Ford. Bedford.

vi) To a lady whose husband was in the services and whose child and sister were also with her. For only 2 or 3 months. Bedford.

6) Were they kind and did you miss home?

I missed home and everything familiar and I missed my family. We had been very sheltered at home. I had never washed or bathed myself. Hadn't washed my own hair nor even combed it and had only ever done exactly as I was told. Being so free was fun in a way but disorientating. None of my billets and famlies were unkind but, mostly, not particularly kind and friendly either. There was severe rationing of food and clothing/all textiles. There was a shortage of everything from hair clips and sewing needles to furniture and pots and pans. In fact, shops had mostly only basics and necessities on sale. I was thrilled when in 1948 a few handkerchiefs became available in Woolworths. They were small, printed, expensive and part of one's ration (6 handkies or a pair of socks) and they were quite nasty, but better than what we called "a rag" (a piece of an old torn up sheet, sometimes hemmed round and sometimes not). People didn't travel much out of their area in those days so southerners didn't meet or know northerners. We were different in many ways and didn't understand one another much. The furthest we had been was Hastings and Hove on holiday. It was not surprising that families who took in evacuees didn't like the intrusion, disruption and extra work on top of the deprivations and worries of a dreadful war.

My experiences were probably average. Nora, who came from a poor, deprived, not at all salubrious background, found that a second billet in Bedford was superb, where the well-off owner pampered, taught and groomed her into a lady!!! There were others who were equally well treated and others who were neglected and cruelly treated.

My father became ill in 1941 and my mother returned home to him from Kettering, leaving Roy with our friends (the Harrises), Rosemary next door with a woman who treated her (aged only 9) as a scivvy to do all the housework. She was so free and unsupervised though that in a way she enjoyed it. Yvonne went to another family in a council house and fairly poor. She was 4 1/2 and all her meals were eaten standing at the table, though the people were not exactly unkind.

7) What sort of things did you do?

I explored the areas in which my various billets were situated. I remember visiting a beautiful wood absolutely carpeted with bluebells. I've never forgotten the sight, a place outside Maidstone called Loose.

Home was only a village in those days with orchards and strawberry fields all round us - now all built up. However, there was a farmer's orchard at the bottom of the garden and the Freemans told us to go in and pick up the wind fall apples. I hadn't done that at home! The Freemans grew runner beans and told us to pick them. They had lots of caterpillars on them and I was very frightened. On the day I arrived in Maidstone, I stood outside and watched the Battle of Britain taking place overhead. We saw the dog fights between the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe (German air force) and saw planes shot down. They spiralled down with plumes of smoke behind them and we saw airmen coming down under their parachutes. It was on a Saturday.

5th September 1940 - When I was with the Wests some lovely Welsh people called Williams, who lived nearby, greatly took to me and found me very entertaining so I visited them often. I swam in the river Medway nearby. It was pretty unpleasant. My parents would have been horrified at a great deal of what I was doing! There were many air raids and at school we fairly often had to go down steps into underground shelters. They were zig zag tunnels with benches for us to sit on. We sang and played things like cat's cradles with string, taught by a teacher, lovely, elderly Miss Daviet.

In Bedford I formed a club of which I was leader and we had what we called "adventures". Once, Beryl Tate was walking along some planks that were attached to the banks of the river Ouse that were lower than the path that ran beside the river. I was on the path. The river was completely frozen over and Beryl couldn't see that the planks ended, nor that the ice along the banks was thin. Suddenly she disappeared into the water and her expression was so funny I laughed. Naughty! Of course I helped her out and as no-one was ever at my billet at lunch time I took her there and we tried to dry her brown woollen uniform stockings on the door of the kitchen range but became distracted and holes burnt into them!

When I was with the Martins I mostly read in the evenings and at weekends. I could read a book a day (thoroughly, no skipping) so went to the library often. I loved the Chalet School books and other boarding school based books and also Baroness Orkzey's books about the French Revolution featuring The Scarlet Pimpernel and books about the Yukon (Western Canada) and the Gold Rush.

I did very little with the families I was with and they didn't take me anywhere much.

My friend Mrs Williams, when I was in Maidstone, took me to St Leonards on Sea to visit the convent of the Holy Child Jesus. The sister of my father's mother was a nun there. She was Sister Stanislaus, my great aunt, whose birth name was Anne Kate Bailey, our Auntie Kate. We couldn't go on the beach. All along the sea front there were huge rolls of barbed wire, to deter any possible German invasion.

8) What did you eat?

I remember very little of the food I ate. I think there must have been enough and it must have been edible or I would remember. We ate well at my own home but I was a fussy eater, having been very ill, aged 5 to 6, so that some foods (eg lamb, which is greasy) made me very queasy. When I was with the Martins I do remember the lunches. The old lady was never there and my lunch was left on the kitchen table. I can only recall cold, roast meat and potatoes and cold, white cornflour pudding (something like blancmange, but with almost no flavour). In my mind, it was the same every day and I always ate it, but didn't enjoy it.

9) Did you go on a bus or a train to be evacuated?

By train back home May 1942.

10) Did you get extra millk to drink?

No. In those days one had one third of a pint of milk at school at morning break time. It cost half a penny a day. There were 480 x 1/2d (half old pence) per pound, so 1/2d is roughly one fifth of a present 1p. A week's school milk would cost 2 1/2d which is about 1 penny in "new" money. I always bought my school milk, so didn't have "extra", just the same as always. I know that some children had little milk in their own home and couldn't afford school milk, but if they were evacuated to a farm some did then have lots of milk.

11) Did you go to school while you were away?

Yes, I did go to school. However, because we shared schools we had use of the proper school for half the day. For the other half of the day we went to a hall and the real pupils of the school had their turn in their school. Our teachers were away from their homes and their normal lives and were teaching under those difficult circumstances. for these 2 years of evacuation I really learned very little indeed. I didn't enjoy the lessons. The year from September 1938 was abnormal at school. The priests from our church set up 3 very small schools for parishioner children who remained at home (not evacuated) and we went there for a while. One was in the vicarage and I attended one in the parish hall. There were about 12 of us of all ages. Just before that one teacher had returned from evacuation and we went to her home to collect home work (no teaching) which we returned to her for marking. Later, one school opened in our area and I went there.

When I returned home from evacuation, i went to a convent Grammar school opened in our area. This was excellent. I did most of my learning before September 1938 so from age 3 to 9 1/2 and then from September 1942 aged 13 1/2. However, I used to come first in my class at the convent and obtained my Oxford school certificate with matriculation exemption aged 15 1/4 so more than caught up.

12) When did you go home?

Our parents were very dissatisfied with the way we were looked after and our schooling when we were evacuated so they brought me home in about May 1942. I didn't start at the convent till the following September. Roy obtained a Junior County Scholarship when he was 11 and left Kettering in September 1941 to join the Roan School which was evacuated to Amarford in Wales. He came home in July 1942. Rosemary and Yvonne returned home from Kettering around ugust 1941. Every school holiday I went home to Plumstead from evacuation. At Christmas, 1940, I slept under our kitchen table (it was a solid "deal" pine table) on a mattress with my father, because of the air raids. He took me by train to Kettering and we all had Christmas together at the Harrises' house. He and I returned home on Sunday 29th December 1940. It was the night of the second great fire of London. One of the biggest air raids of the war was taking place. We reached London but there were no trains to our home because of the raid so we took a bus. When we reached the Old Kent Road our bus and every other bus ceased running because of the danger. Daddy and I sheltered in the doorway of a bombed shop because he told me "Lightening doesn't strike twice in the same place" (wrong!!) As it happened, an incendiary bomb (fire bomb) fell absolutely at our feet. He kicked it into the gutter immediately. The whole of the City of London was on fire and I remember seeing the whole skyline was red, orange and yellow and, though there were no street lights nor other lights, because there were blackout rules, it was very light. It must have been about 11 pm. Finally, a very brave bus driver decided he wanted to go home and offered to take along anyone who wished to take the risk. We did wish to do so and went upstairs on the bus. I was only 11 and very tired by then. My father had a quarter of a pound of (sticky) acid tablets (rationed) in his pocket and he gave them to me. When the bus reached home, someone passed round a cap to collect a 'thank you' tip for the driver and I think we either cheered or sang "for he's a jolly good fellow" or both.

There were no other children and no women there. Young men were in the services and so most people there were old men. Some of the younger fire-fighters may still be alive, but would now be very old. I was 11 at the time, so not many people who witnessed that will still be alive today.

(Continued in Part 2 - story A9025003)

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