大象传媒

To begin with I must emphasise that there are many gaps in my young life as an evacuee that have been lost forever. However I will endeavour to write as a (young) seventy-two year old who realises that as he became an adult he knew why he carried a scar with him since he was ten years old!

This scar was not only carried by myself, but also by my mother's other three children. I will also point out in my evacuation story the scars carried by so many others.

My mother's four children were born in April 1925, November 1927, April 1931 and September 1933. Julia (also called Jules or Julie) was the eldest. Annie (only known as Ann) was next, Joseph (called Joe - I won't mention what others called me), and Philip (Philly or Phil) being the youngest was his mum's shnooks.

At the outbreak of World War Two I was eight years and five months old. By 1940 I, along with my brother and two sisters were evacuated to Saffron Walden in Essex. It transpired that the four of us were expecting to go to Ely or Cambridge (I think Cambridge) because my mate Raphie Solomons went there with his mother. However, as we had no parent with us we were not allowed to go on to Cambridge and we were dropped off at Saffron Walden.

I remember the four of us with gas masks and suitcases being ushered into a church hall and given a brown paper bag containing chocolate and other goodies. My sister Ann was howling 'I wanna go home' - (which she is reminded of to this day). I was too young to know what was happening to us at the time but I do now!!

In Saffron Walden we were allocated to a family whose name I think was Spurges. Opposite was an area we named the 'Hilly Bumps'. It seemed almost immediately that we were to be separated. Jules and Ann were sent to a young couple's house (who were very fussy) and they were not happy there at all. My Philly and me were sent to a Mrs Smith in Castle Street. I seem to recollect that she was elderly and plump (remember I was only 10!). We seemed to be happy there.

The unhappiness of my sisters prompted a phone call home (we had a phone at home in those days) and soon we were taken back home to Hughes Mansions in Stepney. Sometime later (can't remember exactly when) Philly and I were evacuated again to a town in Buckinghamshire. My sister Ann took us to the Gas Works near Hartford Street, Stepney to be picked up and so we were evacuated for a second time.

I suppose Buckingham in those war years was a typical country town. I remember the Hotel there was called the White Hart. We were taken to a nice house in School Lane (number 1 or 2), with Mr and Mrs Bourne and Margaret (Margery?) their daughter.

Mr Bourne worked in the local petrol station (they were called that then), while Mrs Bourne worked on at sewing machine by the window. I remembered she smoked - at least 100 Craven 'A' Black Cat cigarettes day!! Funny the things that stick in one's mind.

If my memory serves me correct they were quite elderly and I do believe they had a son in the Air Force who became a victim of the war. I also recall that I had an air rifle that my father brought to Buckingham for me on one of his visits. When we finally returned home I left it behind for some reason.
I can only remember being quite happy there. Philly was too (by the way in case I forget, when my younger brother was later to write for a London taxi magazine I gave him the pseudonym name 'Filly'!).

After some while in Buckingham us two boys were taken from the Bourne's home to stay with Mrs Allen at No.13 Mitre Street. She had a young girl (perhaps only 1 or 2 years old then). Mr Allen was away in the army.

Mrs Allen was a lot younger than the other people we had stayed with. She had a sister who lived a few doors away in Mitre Street and I remember that her sister had only one and a half arms. Looking back we must have been very happy there, but something was to happen that would change the lives of my mother's four children forever.

One day my father arrived at No.13 Mitre Street unexpectedly. I noticed immediately that he had a diamond black patch on the sleeve of his coat and I asked him what it was for (I was just 10 years old at the time). He replied that it was for grandma Liza (my mother's adopted mother) who had died. Grandma Liza had taken my mother in when she was 6 months old and so my mother, who was from Jewish parentage, was brought up by my Christian grandma and her son, uncle Willie, a wonderful kind man. But I am transgressing, that is another story, unique in itself!

Looking back to that day when my father arrived in Buckingham with a diamond patch on his coat, I am now sure that it was the beginning of the way my thoughts of life began to take shape. I would look for reasons for everything; it was the start of the shaping of my personal scar.

To this day I can't remember who told me that my mother was killed at 1a Hughes Mansions at the age of 35. I am told that my family, including my father's mother, my grandma Kate, uncles and aunts, cousins, my two sisters and friends (may be twelve in all) sleeping on the mattresses with the ceiling propped up with wooden columns (a two bedroom ground floor flat).

My mother's home was open to all. She was, I am told, what epitomises an East-end mother, wife and woman. A bomb had dropped outside the street door and I am told that as she walked from the kitchen into the passage the bomb exploded and she was hit by shrapnel. As she lay dying her last words were for my father, Morry.

Strange as I recollect my Buckingham town days, I remember having a fight in the playground at the school, with another boy who told my brother Philly that my mother had been killed. Yet I cannot remember who had actually told me. Maybe it was the headmaster of the school - who knows?!!

What else is strange - or maybe ironic, is that I understand that historians have documented that the Blitz on London ended the night of May 10th/11th 1941, the night of my mother's passing.

To get back to my evacuation, some time after my mother's passing (I can't remember how long after), my brother and I went back to the East End. There were still air raids, but not like the blitz. It was the beginning of the V1s (the Doodlebugs). Philly and I were now told that we were to be evacuated again!! My cousin Sid was evacuated to a camp school in Hertfordshire. I wanted to be sent on my own without my brother (I don't know why). Following a row with my father (there were many throughout his life with me), it was decided that I would go on my own. Philly was to stay with friends of the family in Pinner, Middlesex. My cousin Sid left the camp school a few months later.

My third evacuation was to be my last. The address I went to was The Nettleden LCC School, St Margaret's Camp, Great Gaddesden (near Hemel Hempstead), Hertfordshire.

This to me was the beginning of my becoming man before my time. The school was strictly regimented. We lived in dormitories named SHAFTESBURY, LISTER, WREN, GORDON, SHELLEY. There were two women called Sisters (like matrons) who inspected our beds for tidiness and cleanliness. We were given marks (or points I think) which were added to the points gained for our classroom behaviour, and a pendent was given to the dormitory who had the most points; each dormitory competed against each other. The school and classrooms were in the compound at the camp. We were allowed to see a film on a Saturday evening at the camp, and we had our own kitchen there. During the summer we had school in the morning and evening and the afternoons were for sport and recreation - like looking for golf balls that Mr Wade had knocked all over the grounds!! We also worked on the local farms during the school holidays.

The schoolmasters - ah that's a story - Mr Ernest E White - Headmaster, Mr Tucker - Garden Master, Mr Bellinger - Scouts and Woodwork Master, Mr Morgan - Boys Brigade, Mr Jones, Mr Nelson, Mr Houghton, Mr Wade.

Mr Wade was well over 6ft tall (or so it seemed to me). He wore plus 4s on occasions and his favourite words were 'BOY WHAT ARE YOU DOING!', then whack!! On one occasion my cousin Sid had a fight with him in the dining room (another story). Each night we had to have certain vitamin tablets that were given to us when we had gone to bed. In the dormitories we had double bunks. While administering the tablets one master knew who the weak boys were and his hand would often stretch under the bed clothes - but not mine - he knew who was who!
Mr Jones (we called him Yonser, don't know why) was our music teacher. Mr Nelson had only half a chin - we think he had it blown partly off during World War I. Mr Golding was our sports master. (I was in the cricket team.) He had also been one of our teachers at our school in London "Robert Montefiore". And then there was Mr Ernest E White the headmaster, a nasty piece of work, especially when he used the cane!

The masters had their own room at the end of the dormitories. Sometimes we used to overhear them talking on the veranda and we suspected from what we overheard that one of the master's was a communist - or had left wing views. I recall that both Mr Bellinger and Mr Golding were both good looking men, funny the things that you remember when you look back.

I remember a history lesson given by Mr Nelson (the one with half a chin). He told us that during the first world war to keep awake whilst on sentry duty he would light a fag and put it between his middle finger and the one next to the little finger. The fag would not fall out, it would eventually burn his fingers and wake him up. Funny enough when I went to do my national service in August 1949 I did try this and low and behold it actually worked. So much for history lessons at school.

Mr Morgan was known as Moggy Morgan. He was, it seemed, paralysed down the left side of his arm and leg. His hand was withered and obviously he felt no pain. When we were naughty (which I suppose was quite often) he used to bang his withered arm on the top of our heads. He felt nothing - I have suffered with headaches ever since - anyway that's my excuse! (Is it too late to report him?)

To give some idea of the type of school which was full of evacuees - we had 30 (average) in the classrooms. The last term at school I came 27th out of 30 for arithmetic (third from bottom), but overall I came 3rd in the class - can you imagine what the rest were like!! But I guarantee with all the trauma that we went through we all went on to earn a living - in one way or another. While we were there we had to join the Boys Brigade or Scouts. I joined the scouts and played the fife (or tried to) in the band.

When I left school in April 1945 the war was still on. My father asked me to get a testimonial before I left. I knocked on Mr Ernest E White's door, more than a bit nervous (I probably knew what was coming) and said to him that my father had asked me to ask you sir for a testimonial as I am leaving at Easter. He looked up at me for the first time and sternly said: "NO". I thanked him.

I think this reaction to my request was because I had had a row with him over something or other and I had told him that I did not want to be a prefect anymore and resigned! (There is another story regarding a testimonial.)
I believe when my father had asked me if I had the testimonial, I told him that I had forgot to ask for it. In March 1943 my father remarried, I was at the camp school. After that, life changed. I won't go into this any further as there are still people alive whom I feel will be upset as to what I'd have to say. Anyway I am supposed to be writing about the experiences of an evacuee, but these other experiences in my life are part of it.

Tragedy struck once again, just before I was due to return from my evacuation, to start life (as a 14 year old) as a trainee cab mechanic at a London tax cab garage. The last V2 to land on London hit Hughes Mansions, Vallance Road, Stepney. It was during the time of the Jewish Passover. 134 innocent civilians were killed. The date was 27th March 1945 at 7.20. My father and two sisters survived. We were re-housed in a dilapidated house in Pelling Street, off Burdett Road E14, an area known as Limehouse. We stayed there for a while until the mansions were repaired. We then moved into No.3 Hughes Mansions. My father took me to the site after I had left the camp school. It was a couple of weeks after the rocket devastated our wonderful community of East Enders. The dust and rubble was still in the air. The war was coming to an end and this had to happen!

I have a list of all the East Enders who were killed in Stepney and Bethnal Green during the war (these two boroughs are only a small part of my East End) and makes grim, traumatic reading, whole families, babies. The young and old, people of different religions, people from a vibrant community, some very honest, some not so, but all lovely East Enders were no more.

I started my evacuee story emphasising that there are certain gaps in my life as an evacuee, but as I grew older and I hope an intelligent thinking person, there are some memories that stick and there are others that I wish I could remember.

I wish I could remember my mother's voice; I wish I could remember if she ever cuddled me.. I only see photos of a beautiful woman (whom my sister Julie clearly resembles). I only have the words of my father's family who have remembered down the years and tell of a wonderful, lovely woman, wife and mother. What wonderful memories this evacuee has missed. Does life make sense?
I am afraid that this evacuee's story has not been too humorous! Maybe I am making a point! And those who have passed away some years ago, my two sisters and those who lived through the war, and those who have passed away since the end of the war, have carried their own scars with them. My family will carry their own individual loss of a mother. I personally have carried my scar for so long that it is now a part of me.

My personal consolation since my evacuation all those years ago is that, maybe my mother - somewhere - who know where, made it possible for me to have a diamond of a wife and a diamond of a son.

Like so many evacuees during the war, our education was interrupted, and who knows how many evacuees have suffered mental scars.

Evacuation was followed by post war rationing and austerity. The children and grandchildren of evacuee parents do not realise how lucky they are. Let's hope that it continues.

(Joe Emden)

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