大象传媒

Operation Pied Piper, the evacuation of three million people from Britain's cities to rural areas, began in earnest as soon as war broke out. Initially hailed as a triumph of British optimisim and practicality, many evacuees remember it chiefly as a chaotic, traumatic and confusing time of seperation from friends and family. Many others remember it as a time of exciting new experiences.

For some, it meant moving to a whole new world - the farm...

"At what age I was evacuated I cannot remember. However I do know that at least my mother (Martha) and I went to a farm at Hermitage, Berkshire. The farm was/is a bus ride (buses ran just two days a week) outside Newbury, which at the time was a cattle market town.

I believe that the farm did not have electric power, gas or water mains as we know them today. Whether either my sister (Frances) or my twin brother (Cyril Lewis), who died just prior to his third birthday, was with us I cannot recall. How long we were there I do not recall.

My father (Dick) stayed at home as he was a coalman. This was a reserved occupation, there were other reserved occupations, that needed men as bags of coal weighed 1cwt. (approx 50kgs).

Filling the sacks and loading the lorries wasn't easy, then they were carried up steps onto a lorry. When the lorry arrived at a house to deliver the coal it was not easy to carry the full sack on one's back to the bunker or shed or cupboard. These were in the back garden or maybe sometimes upstairs.

That's why grandpa Dick did not go in the forces and was not evacuated. Several of his brothers were also coalmen. One was arrested by mistake for desertion when going to work."

Montague Trout
's father

Farm life could seem very strange for children evacuated from a city for the first time:

One morning Mrs Campbell (the lady we were billeted with) sent my cousin Tommy and I down to the next farm with a sort of bucket to collect some milk.

Dutifully we went on our way to walk the half mile or so to the farm.

There the farm hand took the bucket from us and began milking the cow straight into our bucket. When he was done he asked us if we would like to take a drink from the bucket.

"What!?", said Tommy and myself in unison,"do you think we are daft? There is no way under the sun we are going to drink cow's pee."

Tommy Mac

Not everyone was evacuated, but of those who were, many would be sent much further afield than the British countryside. Such journeys could be hazardous in the extreme:

The area where I lived was not subjected to bombing although we had many air-raids that resulted in us using our shelters. Comsequently no-one was evacuated.

However the place where I now live - Sunderland - was very heavily bombed and many children were evacuated from here. Some evacuations were to Canada and one ship carrying evacuees was sunk on its way there with large loss of life.

Alan Vickers

Life for an evacuee could be very unsettling, as young children were seperated from their families, to be chosen by their strange new hosts in a strange new place:

To tell the story of how I lost my mother on the same day as my father, I must lay down some background to set up the story.

We lived in a failry big tenement in Glasgow - two rooms and a kitchen. This was considered quite luxurious and not at all overcrowded.

In the kitchen was a recess bed, or as we called it, 'the hole in the wall bed'. My dad and my uncle Tommy were brothers, and my mum and my aunty Mary were sisters. The two brothers married the two sisters, so we were all like a complete family. I was the eldest, age nine. The other Tommy (my cousin) was eight, my younger sister, Betty was seven, my other cousin Michael was six, leaving my then youngest sister Mary aged just three. So when my dad was called up, my uncle Tommy, being a marine engineer was kept back as his was a deferred occupation.

So! Upon evacuation my mother was put in charge of the five children. This was until we arrived at our destination, Ballinluig, Scotland. From there we were marched to a nearby hall in the village of Logerate and the locals walked around and hand picked whichever evacuees they wanted.

At this point, someone discovered that Tommy and Michael were brothers and therefore a seperate family fom ours. So of course they were seperated from us.

But Michael began screaming and shouting, "I want to stay with my auntie Lizzie" (my Mum). He screamed so much that the authorities decided it was best to let him stay with my mother and, as I was the eldest, I should be evacuated along with my cousin Tommy.

Thus it was I was taken from my mother and placed in the home of a Mr and Mrs Campbell, leaving her with two evacuees named Tommy McSorley.

So What did they do? They decided to call me 'Big Tommy' as I was the oldest and the other was of course 'Wee Tommy '.

Now, despite this being 64 years ago, to this day I am called 'Big Tommy, and the other is still 'Wee Tommy'.

To make things more confusing, I am just 5ft 2in tall and 'Wee' Tommy is 5ft 8in!

So that is how Mrs Campbell ended up with two evacuees named Tommy McSorley, and how I got seperated from my mother.

Tommy Mac

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