大象传媒

DISCLAIMER:
This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Phil Sealey of the Somerset County Museum Team on behalf of Beryl May Cox and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

The Journey
鈥淚 was evacuated to Hatch Beauchamp near Taunton in 1940 with my school Park Hill in Ilford. We were taken from the school by coach to Paddington Station. I seem to remember my Mother waving my brother (who was billeted in the nearby village of Wrantage on a farm) and me goodbye from the platform. All we had with us was a haversack, presumably filled with the bare necessities, our gasmasks and one toy. I took my favourite doll and my friend, Meryl, took her black one.
I remember when we got to Taunton we walked in twos through the town to the Town Hall and the roads were lined with people. We were then sorted out into coach loads, which took us around the villages, presumably dropping off as many children as the villagers had volunteered to accommodate.
My friend and I were taken to Hatch Beauchamp to the village hall where we sat and waited to be chosen by somebody. My Mother had told me to ask to be billeted with Meryl and not my brother as he and I were always fighting and no one would keep us for more than a week.
However, Meryl and I were nearly the last left in the hall when a pretty, and tall young lady came in and chose us. I remember nudging Meryl as she walked into the hall and saying, 鈥淚 hope she chooses us鈥� and she did.
She was the younger of the two Miss Crossleys, Miss Mary. She took us to her鈥檚 and her sister鈥檚, Miss Elizabeth, lovely old house called Fowlers Farm. The household consisted of the two Miss Crossleys, their nanny, Miss Jones and the cook Mrs Bransden. Mrs Bransden looked the typical cook of those days and always wore a uniform of a striped cotton dress with a big white apron and her hair was in a bun on the top of her head. She was fairly short, rather round and red faced. There was a bungalow in the grounds where their gardener and his wife Mr and Mrs Masters lived. Whilst I was there they had a daughter Margaret. My parents stayed with them when they came to visit me.
Settling In
We settled in quite quickly although I do remember crying once because I was homesick and wanted my Mother and Meryl saying, 鈥測ou can鈥檛 have her so stop crying鈥�.
We had quite a strict upbringing but very caring. Miss Elizabeth always bathed us at night and read us a bedtime story and when she was going out to dinner in evening dress she always came in before we were asleep to show us her dress. She introduced me to the Christopher Robin stories. Miss Mary joined the forces soon after we arrived; I think it was the Wrens. The sisters had a brother who was an officer in the regular army and he and his wife were stationed in Cairo. His wife was an actress and I think she was involved with ENSA. When he was on leave they use to come and stay at Fowlers Farm.
Miss Elizabeth bought a cow so we should have plenty of fresh milk and the cook made butter and cream from it. There was a large apple orchard where we had a swing and a little garden of our own to grow whatever we wanted to. The garden was lovely with a beautiful herbaceous border; there was wisteria and virginia creeper growing up the walls of the house. There was a walled kitchen garden where Miss Elizabeth grew anything from asparagus and cucumbers in a cold frame to figs, apricots, peaches and all the more everyday vegetables. Outside the kitchen garden she grew all kinds of soft fruits and kept bees. There was a large walk-in dog kennel and run for the three dogs she had. She also kept chickens, geese and rabbits, so we never went short of anything; we didn鈥檛 know what food rationing was.

School Days
We went to the village school, at first we had one of our teachers from Park Hill, but quite soon a lot of evacuees went home so our teacher also went home, we were then taught by the two local teachers. Miss Smallridge, who was also the church organist, took the infants. The headmistress, Miss Brown, took the older children and she lived in the attached school house and when in her class we had to take it in turns, the girls to make her bed, wash-up etc.; the boys had to clean the fire out and re-lay it and bring the coal in. Miss Brown was very much the old-fashioned village schoolteacher even down to her plaited hair, which was made into 鈥榚arphones鈥�. As far as I remember she never taught us a thing and we worked from the exercise books and marked them ourselves from the answer book and when we reached the end of the book we started at the beginning again leading to a much-neglected education.

Life after Meryl went home
My friend Meryl went home long before me and I was soon integrated into village life. We walked with Miss Elizabeth through Hatch Court deer park to church on Sunday mornings. The church was situated next to what I suppose was the manor house, which was owned by the Gauts and we went to the house after church so Miss Elizabeth could have a sherry with Mrs Gaut before we went home for lunch. At one-time Mrs Gaut had a house full of East End of London children. One Christmas she held a party for all the evacuees in the village helped by some American soldiers who had us sliding down the lovely wide staircase on tea trays.
I was encouraged to take part in village activities like the village fete, entering into competitions like collecting and naming wild flowers, cooking boiled potatoes etc. Miss Elizabeth used to grow sweet peas and we made them into buttonholes and I鈥檇 walk round the fete with a basket of them to sell.
We used to have a village concert before Christmas and I remember singing, 鈥淚n my sweet little Alice blue gown鈥� at one of these concerts.
Occasionally a German plane would drop its last bomb in the fields nearby escaping in a hurry after bombing Bristol. Because of this Miss Elizabeth turned her dining room into a bedroom for me as she felt I would be safer downstairs.
Mrs. Bransdon the cook always made me a special cake on my birthday and Miss Elizabeth would take me to the pictures or give me some other treat.
Miss Jones the nanny would not allow us to have bread and butter and jam at teatime but on her and Mrs. Bransdon鈥檚 afternoon off Miss Elizabeth made our tea and we would have lovely dainty cucumber sandwiches and bread, butter and jam which was always such a treat.

Going Home
I came home after three and half years because Miss Elizabeth felt my education was being so badly neglected and the raids had stopped in London. If I had passed my scholarship and been able to go to Taunton grammar school I would probably have stayed in Hatch Beauchamp until the end of the war.鈥�

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