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This story was submitted to the people war Website by a volunteer from Tiverton Museum of Mid Devon Life on behalf of John Brasier.

At the outbreak of war I was 8 years old. On the 21st July 1940 I was evacuated from Hastings with my 6 year old brother to Aston in Hertfordshire. My main recollection was that there were no flush toilets or hot running water. Luxuries I had been used to as a town boy with a father as a plumber.

I was 2 years in Aston (2 billets) and then moved to St. Albans where I had a further 2 billets. I was living with another boy (not my brother who remained in Aston). In my first school in Aston children were placed in 3 classes for age range 5 — 14 so you were still in ‘primary’ school at school leaving age! I always remember trying to sit in a position where I wasn’t too cold or too hot. There was no central heating only a big black stove in the middle of the room.

All the boys had an ‘allotment’ at school and I won the first prize for the best kept plot. I won 6 tomato plants. The girls’ activity was ‘make do and mend’.

In September the school closed for a week for potato harvesting. A lunchtime treat was a baked potato but no filling! It was great fun.

I went back to Hastings in 1943 having persuaded my mother to take me home. I had not enjoyed the school at St. Albans where I had won a scholarship. My father was away in the Army at the time although he was later discharged on medical grounds.

I remember the street parties at the end of the war in Hastings.

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