大象传媒

These reminiscences have been donated by Ron Hicks of (Kingswood Heritage Museum)with his full agreement of the rules and regulations regarding the The People's War Website.

Bristol Schools Evacuation 1941
Bannerman Road School, Easton.

We were bombed out on the night of 16th/17th of March 1941, and by the end of the month I was on a train-heading south. I was ten years old and had a good enough grasp of geography to know that when we passed through Plymouth we must be going to Cornwall. The selection process was a messy affair, with all the pretty girls the first to be chosen. Then the farmers who had been working on the farms came in. Two of us were asked if we would like to live on a farm, yes we said in concert and off we went.

Very Well Fed

Everyone knows that you do not keep a dog and bark yourself, so farmers do not grow food and starve (Good thinking Ron) we were very well fed, there were a few rules. We could have bread, butter, and jam or bread, butter, and cream. But not butter and cream on the same slice of bread, you will know of course that at the age of ten the temptation is just too great.(The farmers wife was a very busy woman and not always in the kitchen).

Working For The Farmer

We had to go to school it was two and a half miles across the moor, there was one problem, and the moor was infested with snakes. I suspect most of them were more worried about us than we were about them, but they did not know how worried that was. During the summer holidays we had to help on the farm, it seemed like hard work but looking back it was also a lot of fun. That is except when it was working in rain with a potato sack tied over your back to keep you dry.

Goodbye Bully

I woke up one morning to find my fellow evacuee had been taken away during the night, there had been trouble several times when he would pick a fight with the farmers son who was only just six, some five years younger, so he was sent elsewhere in Cornwall.

The Seagull

Chicks and Ducklings had disappeared about twenty of them, and as it was part of my job to look after them I was worried. But the farmer said he鈥檇 had the problem before and to keep a look out for any extra big seagulls diving down into the bushes. It was not long when I saw a big bird, the biggest seagull I had ever seen, swoop down and then up with a chick in its beak, I ran in and told the farmer he grabbed his shot gun and was just in time for the birds second dive. He shot it and then cut open its throat to find eleven chicks and ducklings all the way down to its stomach.

Harvest Time Hay

There was an old car in the barn, and one evening it was brought out and started. It was the only engine driven thing on the farm everything else was done by horse. When the hay was gathered in a wooden rake was fitted to the front of the car, and it was then driven around the field scooping up the hay. This was then forked up to make a haystack.

Harvest Time Corn or Wheat

This was the best time of the year, a big steam traction engine towed the thrashing machine into the Rick yard, and this machine turned the straw into bales and put the corn into sacks. Gangs of men were paid to do the work with the traction engine, and Cornish pasties and cider was supplied midday by the farmer鈥檚 wife. They then moved on to the next farm.

I came home for Christmas during late 1941. All the big raids on Bristol had stopped so I never went back

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