大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a 大象传媒 Cambridgeshire Story gatherer on behalf of Joyce Cooper and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was evacuated from London to Lanreath in Cornwall. When I was 12 I went with my younger sister Audrey and younger brother John leaving my parents in London. I don鈥檛 know how I felt as it was something that everyone was doing and it was expected. It helped being the eldest so it gave me something to do as I looked after them.

We went to a farm which was about between 3 and 4 miles from the village so we had to walk from the farm to the school every day. My brother was only 6 so we were always late for school as he couldn鈥檛 walk very well. Sadly it wasn鈥檛 that good but we did have home made butter and bread and home made cider. Every night we drank cider. Even my 6 year old brother and as it was home made it was very strong! When my mother found out she was very angry!

On the farm we didn鈥檛 have to help out but we did some general chores. My brother loved it so he helped with the animals and hay making, but I didn鈥檛 like the animals so I didn鈥檛 help.

We all shared a bed, it wasn鈥檛 very good but at least it was a double bed. We were only there for about 6 weeks and then my parents took us back to London when it was in the middle of the Blitz. My uncle had been evacuated from Dunkirk and he found a cottage in the village of Whaddon and we all moved there with my parents, grandmother, brother and sister. We stayed there untill the end of the war.

I even met my husband in Whaddon in around 1943. We met when we used to go to the Methodist church for social meetings. He was a soldier and we went to the church to meet people and by August 2005 we鈥檒l have been married 59 years!

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.