大象传媒

This story was submitted to the people's war site by a pupil from Swavesey Village College on behalf of Joan Reynolds and has been added to the site with her permission. Joan Reynolds fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

My experience of the evacuation really started on the last days of the summer term, July 1939. I was a pupil at Thoresby High School, which was situated in the centre of Leeds. The war was obviously coming, and our headmistress had been offered a school in Lincoln. A new school had been built on the outskirts of Lincoln and the pupils were already installed there. The school which they had vacated was standing empty and though it consisted of wooden buildings, she accepted the offer. To have a school of our own would be ideal for the 100 girls who had signed up to be evacuated in the event of a war. I went on a holiday to Morcambe with my mother and sister. My father had died in 1934.
My mother was a teacher and on August 25th, she was recalled to Leeds to be ready for the evacuation of her primary school pupils. I went to school and received instructions to be ready to leave Leeds on September 1st.
The next few days seemed unreal. My sister was going back to college in Cambridge; mother was going to Gainsborough and I to Lincoln.
We were to be in school at 9am on September 1st with one piece of luggage and our gas masks. We were given a label on which was written our name and school. This was attached to our coat lapel. We fifth formers were excited at going away from home and our parents for the first time. This was our school certificate year and the excitement was tempered with some apprehension. The buses arrived to take us to the station and we clamoured aboard clutching our luggage and gas masks. Much to my surprise we drove out of the city to the suburb of Beeston where I lived. We went to the station and disembarked to join the throng of children on the platform with their flustered teachers trying to keep them in line. Amongst the adults, I spotted my cousin Frank. I waved to him and he came over to me. "Hello, I wondered if I would see you, I'm here to represent the education committee and to see you off safely." I was delighted to have such a distinguished person and family member there to say good bye.
The train came from Leeds and we all managed to find seats and put our belongings on the luggage racks. My cousin walked along the train waving good bye and he was the last person I saw as the train pulled out.
The journey was uneventful as there were no stops and we arrived in Lincoln to see the imposing cathedral, dominating the city. We changed from train to bus and were taken to a leafy suburb where we left the bus and were directed to a large garden of a private house. We were told to sit on our luggage until we were assigned to a billet.
Several ladies, who had volunteered to have evacuees in their homes, walked among us and picked out the girls or boys whom they liked the look of! This was my first and last experience of being inspected and scrutinized as in a slave market. The process was a long one and as it was a hot day we girls in our winter uniforms started to droop and wished someone would take a fancy to us.
I had a particular friend, Jean, and we hoped we could go to the same billet. One by one and two by two, the evacuees left for their new homes. There were about 6 of us left from the same school that nobody seemed to want.
There was one lady who should have been there but she was still away on holiday at Mablethorpe. She said she would take 6 evacuees. In the end one of our teachers took us all to this ladies house. Of course when we came to this enormous house, there was only the husband there, and our teacher said she would stay with us until the lady of the house came home.
We tried to sort ourselves out but it was a very large, old house and we got lost trying to find the bathroom and the various rooms allocated to us.
Eventually our hostess came home and we had some welcome home cooking. Bramble and apple pies always remind me of those early days in Lincoln. The weather was glorious and on Sunday September 3rd we went to church. It was towards the end of the service that a note was handed to the minister and he announced gravely that we were at war with Germany. Having been brought up with stories of the horrors of the First World War, I thought whatever will this war be like? As most people know, there was an air raid warning that night. The house was blacked out and we evacuees were told to put on our gas masks and, tripping around in our night attire, we found getting into the main staircase was not at all easy. After many collisions, we found the stairs, and there we sat expecting to be bombed and gassed any minute. We must have looked very funny huddled on the stairs not knowing what to expect. Fortunately it was not long before the all clear sounded, and we all shuffled up to bed. It was to be the first of many sirens I would hear in various places during the war.
On the first Saturday, September 19th, my mother came over to see me. She was billeted in Gainsborough which was not too far away. She came to see my billet and decided it was not at all suitable, and went to see one of our teachers. Between them, they found another billet, which was quite close to our wooden school. Jean and I packed our belongings and set off for our new home, which was situated in South Park.
We were introduced to our new hostess and her little daughter, Lucy. Apparently, our host was a squadron leader at Waddington, a nearby air field, and had been serving in India when war threatened and he was brought back to England. To complete the family there were two sons, Michael and Brian. We did not meet them until their next holidays. Lastly, there was Amy the maid. She lived in, and on her day off went home to Brigg, which was not too far away. Jean and I were made very welcome and settled down quickly.
We enjoyed a walk in the glourious autumn sunshine to our little school. With our own teachers and our own premisise the school work went well. For the games and P.E. we were allowed to go to the new school.
Our host was the intelligence officer at Waddington so he briefed the aircrews before each raid and watched them take off. He then had a worrying wait for their return. We were asked by our hostess not to talk to him when he came in at breakfast time as he was always very tired and worried. He was a very tall man and to see his great coat hanging up in the hall was somehow reassuring.
We had quite a lot of air raid warnings but no bombing, but Jean and I had to get up as we were sleeping in the large front attic. We went down to the basement where we used to play table tennis to while away the time. The boys had a proper table down there.
Our hostess relied on the maid for cooking and cleaning. With being in India she was used to having servants and an ayah for Lucy, who was born in India. We therefore had lots of curried dishes when Amy's day off came along. We helped with the washing up and kept our attic tidy.
Amy was quite a character. Our hostess provided her with uniform. In the morning she wore a pink dress and a white apron and cap. In the afternoons she changed into a black dress and a white frilly apron and a white cap, which perched on her peroxided tight curled hair. During the winter we used to sit by the kitchen fire and we finished our homework. Amy was never short of 'followers' with all the airmen around Lincoln, and she used to tell us about her 'dates'. She seemed to have a different young man every time!
When our hostess was alone we joined her for tea in the lounge. Amy would bring in the tea trolley and Jean and I took turns to ring the bell when we had finished to summon Amy to clear away. Great fun!
At other times when our hosts entertained their R.A.F. friends, we had to eat in the kitchen with Amy. Every time this happened, our hostess rang the bell which meant Jean and I had to present ourselves in the lounge. There, we were introduced to the guests by our hostess saying proudly "These are our girls" This was always embarassing, as we thought we should do a party piece, even bow or curtsey! In the event we said "How do you do?" and, being dismissed, we escaped to the kitchen where Amy laughed at our discomfort. She was becoming quite a liability to us. As i have mentioned before, she seemed to have quite a few evenings off, and came in late and slept late. We had to call on her on these occasions and as she slept in a small room in the back attic, we past her room on the way downstairs. When she finally answered, she said would we start the breakfast preparations? We made the porridge and toast and put out the marmite. This was always the menu and very rarely altered unless we had a little bacon. Eggs were saved for tea or any baking the hostess might do. Amy just got down before the family appeared.
My mother came over from Gainsborough every Saturday and exchanged news as we sat in the Cathedral. We went to a nearby cafe for lunch. Her school went back to Leeds at Christmas 1939 as there had been no bombing there. We stayed in Lincoln until June 1940.
That first winter of the war was very cold, snowy and icy and Jean and I suffered a lot with chilblains. There was one activity we enjoyed. The boys were home for the holidays and they had a large sledge called the Scarlet Runner. It held six people and with our host as the brake man, we sped down south park common at a rate of knots. We had some exciting moments and it was nice to see our host relaxing for a while.
Winter passed, and we were working hard on our studies. Spring was welcomed after the hard winter and we were told we would leave Lincoln and return to Leeds to take our school certificates and examinations in June. We would not get back to Thoresby High School as it had a glass roof, so we were going to Roundhay High School. The time came for us to say good bye to our wooden school. It had been a happy place for us. Saying good bye to our family in Lincoln was very emotional. Our hosts had been very kind to us and we had become good friends. There were a few tears, and even the host had a tear in his eye!
I had sent a postcard to my mother telling her the time of our arrival in Leeds Station.
We had mixed feelings on the journey home. It had been a happy time in Lincoln, but we were looking foreward to being at home again. I looked for my mother when we reached Leeds, but could not see her. Then, whom should i see but my cousin Frank! It was strange that he was at my leaving Leeds, and there on my return. I was delighted to see him again, and when he learned that my mother had not come, he went home with me on the tramcar to Beeston. My postcard had not arrived.
Frank and his wife and 3 sons lived quite close to Roundhay High School and it was arranged for me to have lunch there during my exams. Much to my surprise one day, I opened the garden gate and saw three soldiers fast asleep on the lawn. Enid had answered the call for private home-owners to feed and rest the weary soldiers for the Dunkirk beaches.
Finally, as a footnote to all this, I passed both my school and higher certificates, trained as a teacher at Homerton College, Cambridge, and my first years teaching at Leeds was the last year of the war. For my voluntary work in my vacations from the college, I served in Trinity Church hall in Boar Lane, at the canteen. We had lots of servicemen coming in from the station.

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