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THE ROVING EVACUEE

In 1939 I was five and had just started school. After hearing the first few sirens, mother raced me to her sister in Hertfordshire, whom I had never met before. She already had one evacuee and had no room for me. I was taken to a kind neighbour up the road to share a bedroom with her daughter. I hated it. The school that I attended was just outside Hertford. The children teased me for my London accent and the daughter bullied me.

I recalled it recently (not out loud) when my 14 year-old granddaughter asked me to go to the dentist with her for a check-up. Whilst at Hertford I went to see the school dentist who promptly whipped out five front teeth. I walked back to my digs bleeding and feeling very sorry for myself. The second teeth grew incorrectly.

Walking back from school one day and evidently looking very forlorn, I passed by a lady and handsome airman, not recognising them as mother and father. Mother burst into tears and I was back home in Barkingside and school for a few weeks.

Then it was off to an aunt in the country, outside Peterborough. I adored it. Green fields to run wild in, a river at the end of the garden, an auntie that spoilt me, poor little evacuee without her mother. There was a great school 2 miles away, uncle’s dog and lots of children to walk with. The dog went home then returned at the end of the day to escort me home. I shared a bed with my working sixteen year old cousin. Auntie used to send me to bed with a glass of milk and a Marmite sandwich. I have loved Marmite ever since. Gwennie hated it till the day she died — crumbs and Marmite in her bed.

Patch, the dog, came everywhere with me. One day after uncle cleaned and groomed her, he told me that she must stay in, but when walking round to the field behind the house I called the dog — she jumped the fence, swam through the muddy water and when we returned a few hours later, we were both in trouble.

Brian and I returned to the area a couple of years ago searching for a river and eventually found the house, exactly the same but the river was a dirty little ditch and there was a great cement motorway flyover beside it. We clocked 2 miles to the school and there it was, still in use.

My aunt belonged to the St John’s Ambulance and she used to practice her skills at bandaging on me. My reward was a penny for chips and a Tizer (which I had to hide from a disapproving family, who said it was not good for me). After two extremely happy years, uncle lost his job and the whole family returned to Walthamstow.

I went home to Barkingside and to school at Barnardos. The children there had all been evacuated. All was well until there was a direct hit by a Doodlebug on the adjoining Barnardos hospital containing war wounded from the forces. Seeing smoke rising in the distance, all the mothers came running to the school to find us all safe in shelters.

Then it was off to the country again! This time to a farm, the location of which is lost in the mists of time, but was somewhere in the depths of Lincolnshire. The farm had several land girls working hard on the land and so there were a number of Polish air force men calling in the evenings. They were enjoying their war!

After yet another short time at a new school, the war ended and mother returned immediately to take me back home to East London, for a short spell at another school where I passed an exam to go to a girls’ school, which was still evacuated to a boarding school outside Marlow. I stayed there for a disappointing year which turned out to be nothing like the story books I had read before attending a boarding school. I then happily returned to Barkingside. ….So ended my evacuation tour of 6 schools.
Doreen Stammers

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