大象传媒

During the war I lived in Birmingham but was evacuated to Worcester for a while and the people I stayed with were a lovely couple who made me feel so welcome.

My evacuation began from Small Heath Railway Station on the 2nd September 1939 and couldn鈥檛 wait to get to Worcester because I just loved the thought of going somewhere different as an adventure. My mother though, cried her eyes out even though my two older sisters were staying at home with her.

When we first arrived in Worcester with our labels round our necks, we went to a school hall and were given a bag of food with sweets and biscuits and that sort of thing. Then we went in crocodile fashion round the houses to our new homes. We鈥檇 already been allocated our families before we got there but the authorities had done well because they tried to get children living as near to one of their friends as they could. My best friend was put next door to me but she didn鈥檛 fare quite as well as me because they鈥檇 got a girl of their own who was the same age and I suppose it wasn鈥檛 quite so easy for them.

I knew I was going to stay with a butcher and his wife and when I was being introduced to the lady standing on the step of the house, I saw a chap come up the pathway and I said, 鈥淚s that the butcher boy?鈥� 鈥淣o鈥�, she said, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 my husband.鈥� and that started a laugh and broke the ice. The man was her husband but he looked so young. I suppose they were both very young and had only been married three years.

Before I got there, they had painted a bedroom for me to sleep in and even given me their own eiderdown for the bed. I thought it was fantastic, them doing the room up like that for me. I was both delighted and a bit frightened to have a bedroom of my own because at home I shared with one of my sisters while my oldest sister had a bedroom of her own.

I think it was quite a long time before we went to school because the authorities had to sort things out. Eventually though, the Worcester kiddies went to the school in the morning and the Birmingham children went in the afternoon because they couldn鈥檛 accommodate us all at once. I鈥檓 sure the Worcester kids didn鈥檛 think much of us and we didn鈥檛 think much of them, as is the usual rivalry between children. I remember though there was a proper coal fire in the classroom to keep us warm and that was nice.

In the end I was evacuated for only six months because I used to get homesick even though I was quite happy there and they were such a nice couple. I think they might have adopted me but I wanted to come home - and I bet she was glad she never did adopt because she had four children of her own after me! During my six months in Worcester I came home for holidays. At Christmas I think the couple borrowed a car to take me home and while the husband had it, he left the lights on because he didn鈥檛 want anyone to crash into it but a policeman came to the door and said he鈥檇 have to turn the lights off because of the blackout. The couple got on very well with my parents when they brought me home and mum and dad got on well with them. After the holiday I think my sister took me back on the Midland Red bus from what I can remember.

I came from Sparkbrook, where you got both very rich and very poor people. But where I went to school they were very poor and I know of eleven children who got adopted through being evacuated 鈥� and that鈥檚 just those that I know. They didn鈥檛 come back home and I believe they fared much better with their new families. So with some of them evacuation did a good turn. There was one family nearby where the father was a drunkard and they were lovely kids. Three of that family, the eldest children, were adopted which the parents were very annoyed about because they were getting older for earning money.

At Easter I came home for good. I was homesick and my friend next door had gone back home too, so I suppose I wanted to be with my family and friends. The irony was that I came home in time for the BSA to be bombed. We only lived just up the road from the BSA and we had it very bad with the bombing. I suppose we were up out of bed most nights to go down the cellar for shelter and next day see all the rubble and hear about who had died. I was only little but I think you just took it in your stride. You just carried on as though it was part of life sort of thing.

Nearly everyone did what they did to help the war effort and they asked at the school whether any children could do anything to help the brave Russians in their terrible war. I made some knitted toys and sold them to other children for tuppence each and raised 7/6d. Then I sent the money off for the brave Russians and received a handwritten thank you letter from Clementine S. Churchill written on House of Commons notepaper. I am still very proud of that letter.

My sisters were older than me, one was 14 and the other was 17 years old, and they worked at Cadburys. I don鈥檛 think Cadburys were doing war work then, being Quakers and pacifists and my sister鈥檚 job was rolling out marzipan. She hadn鈥檛 been to grammar school although she was clever enough for it and because of the war she got a job as a telephonist at the GPO. She wouldn鈥檛 have had that chance if the war hadn鈥檛 come because the GPO only took grammar school children then. She did well and carried on working there even after the war ended.

I was about 14 and working at Dorothy Perkins in New Street by the time the war ended and I can remember the Americans being based down at the Queensbury Club in Stephens Place - me thinking that was marvellous and my father disagreeing! He said don鈥檛 you dare have anything to do with boys let alone with Americans. But I suppose they just hung around because they were lonely.

I went back and tried to trace the couple who I鈥檇 been evacuated with in 1989 and found that the wife was still alive at 76 years old and the husband had died only two years before. When I met the wife I reminded her about when she took me to the panto in the war and her daughter said, 鈥淢um you never took us to the panto!鈥� but of course by the time four extra children arrived trips would be limited. The lady died shortly after I met her again. I am very grateful that I was sent to stay with such a lovely kind couple.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Sue Hendrie of the CSV action desk on behalf of Betty and has been added to the site with her permission. Betty fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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