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I was born in Gravesend in 1926, one of five children and was evacuated to Wymondham in Norfolk at the start of the war when I was thirteen. I was sent away with my younger brother, Donald, who was eleven and we went on a boat all the way round the coast to Yarmouth. We slept overnight on the floor of a school in Yarmouth and next day travelled by coach to Wymondham.

I don’t honestly remember much about that time, just snippets, really - except that I was sent to stay with a Mr and Mrs Maughan who lived in Park Lane on the side of town near the railway. I very happy there and I got on well with Mr and Mrs Maughan’s two daughters, Sheila and Eileen. The only thing that upset me that I can remember was that I was separated from Donald. He went first to a family called Fisher who lived on Bate Hill and then on to another family but I don’t remember their name or where they lived. (Town records show he went to a Mrs Steward at 4 Northfield Gardens) I remember that it seemed like a very long walk to school at the secondary school on Norwich Road from where I was living though Donald was nearer. I also remember that I got very excited when my parents came to visit us from Gravesend.

I only stayed in Wymondham for one year until I was fourteen and then I went back to Gravesend to start work. Donald came home with me so that he didn’t have stay in Wymondham on his own. The best bit of my war story happened after I got home from Wymondham. I was at a party and this young man came over to me and said, ‘I remember you. You were one of the Gravesend evacuees who went to Wymondham. We were in the same class at school there’. I didn’t remember him but we soon got to know each other very well. Eventually we got married and we’ll celebrate our diamond wedding next year.

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