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During the early part of the war when the government feared that London would be bombed, school children were evacuated, a number of these being sent to Folkestone.

With the advance of German Forces in France and the threat of invasion, about 800 London evacuees had to leave Folkestone on May 19th 1940. A week later we heard broadcast on the radio, Government evacuation plans for a number of towns, including Folkestone and Margate.

And so, on Sunday 2nd June, 3100 Folkestone schoolchildren (about 90% of the total) assembled in the Park near the railway station and our train left at 9.00 a.m, carrying the boys Grammar School and the County School for girls, amongst others. We were in the middle of Dunkirk withdrawal and on the way we stopped at two or three railway stations, where the platforms were filled with troops being served cups of tea by voluntary organisations. When you think how little time the authorities had to organise trains for evacuees and trains to take soldiers from the Channel ports, it strikes me as a masterpiece of organisation. I wonder if we could do it nowadays?

We reached Merthyr Tydfil soon after 5.00 p.m. to find the streets lined with people to welcome us. We were marched off to the nearby Miners’ Hall where we were allocated to our prospective foster parents. I was billeted with another boy in one of three old miners’ cottages, with two small rooms on the ground floor and two bedrooms upstairs. I remember we had to climb up some twisting stone stairs and go through the foster parents’ bedroom to get to ours. Just outside the houses at the back there was a row of 3 toilets with not flushing system. However, we could not have been better looked after and I am sure the experience did us a lot of good.

We went to school in Cyfarthafa Castle, with the Welsh boys occupying the school from 8a.m. — 1 p.m. and we had the school from 1 p.m. until about 5.30 p.m. This system was found to be unsatisfactory, so the juniors were sent to another school and we shared the Castle school with the local boys.

On reaching the age of 15, boys were able to join one of pre-service training units and I joined the Merthyr Squadron of the Air Training Corps where we were allowed to form our own Folkestone Flight.

The majority of the Folkestone schoolchildren went to local schools in Monmouthshire, dotted around the countryside. My father was a schoolmaster at one of the Folkestone Elementary schools, so I was able to spend my holidays with my parents on a farm in Monmouthshire. To me the Monmouthshire countryside was paradise and staying on a form undoubtedly decided my destiny with a career in agriculture.

Our school returned to Folkestone a few days before Christmas 1944, but I returned separately with my parents. Travelling across London we emerged from an underground station to find that it had been hit by a V2 rocket earlier that day.

My temporary foster parents came to Folkestone for a brief visit soon after the war, but sadly they died not long after. Passing through Merthyr several years later, I was horrified to find a heap of rubble where the 3 cottages had been.

As children, we never understood how thankful we should have been that the people of Merthyr looked after us so well and showed us such kindness. On the 50th anniversary of our departure to Wales, I therefore, gave a great deal of thought to a letter designed to show the schools’ appreciation and gratitude for what the Welsh people had done for us. I decided to send the letter to the Mayor of Merthyr and I received a reply from the Mayor’s secretary stating that the Mayor would like to meet me in his parlour and that he would be fixing a date we he returned from leave. I heard nothing further and it was not until a group of evacuees returned to Merthyr in 1994, that I was sad to learn that the Mayor had died not long after receiving my letter. I believe he was an ex-miner and had died of silicosis. Unfortunately, my letter had been lost when the Council moved office.

The 40 odd evacuees who returned in June 1994 visited the old school in the company of members of the Council. We also attended a concert given by the Dowlais Male Voice Choir in the leisure centre, where we were given a rapturous reception when it was announced that wartime evacuees from Folkestone were in the audience.

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