大象传媒

I along with my sister (one year younger) was evacuated from London in the first wave of children 'sent into the country'. It was 1940 and we lived very near to Waterloo Station Terminus. It was expected to take a hammering in any German bombing raids. So it proved. In one of the first London raids I recall the thoroughfare known as "The Cut" ablaze from end to end from the many incendiaries being dropped by the Luftwaffe. Soon after, crowds of children weaved crocodiles into Waterloo Station on evacuation days. Square thin cardboard boxes hung around our necks containing our obligatory gas mask. En route, the train stopped a number of times disgorging small groups of children with, sometimes, an adult or two.

I don't recall there being any tears from the departing children. For myself it was just bewilderment. I was not worried I just wondered what it was all about. My eventual destination was Midhurst in Sussex. My sister and I were split up but we did attend the same school as our billets were in the same nearby village of Easebourne. My sister (Pat) had just one 'billet' throughout her evacuation period of 4-5 years. Compared to the country lads both at home and school I was a rough, tough cockney kid and got into many scraps. I had five or six billets being ousted for a variety of reasons.

Memories of the days approaching D Day were heightened because at that time my billet was on the junction of the road near the then working mill leading into Midhurst. Twenty four hours a day tanks and every other type of army vehicle rolled past the end of our garden. At the junction MPs (Military Police) seemed to shout all day in their largely successful efforts to keep the convoys moving. If, as there were, breakdowns it brought the whole convoy to a halt because of the narrowness of the road. The MPs would then scream and shout themselves hoarse. The watching kids imitated them and screamed and shouted as well!

I remember clearly an elderly Ior so it seemed to us kids!) AA man with his yellow and brown uniform and yellow and brown motorbike and sidecar in such a breakdown situation taking out a pair of drumsticks and rhythmically drum away on the lid of his sidecar. I learnt later he was a veteran of the First World War. We never took any notice of the deep scar on his face. He would not say or talk about how he received it but presumably it was a "present" from his days in conflict. It is equally of myself - to this day I find it difficult to talk about my experiences as an evacuee.

Many of the tanks were American but there was one particular convoy which was Canadian. I remember so clearly their unusual name REX - just that - REX Corps. After about a fortnight the convoys began to thin out. Then can the aircraft. Suddenly the sky was full of planes. Kids during the war knew the name of every aeroplane there was from the Blue Pencil Dornier to the three-engined Caproni Campini, the Junker 88, Beaufort, Blenheim and so many more. We didn't just know the 'Spitfire' we were aware of the difference between the clipped-wing Spitfire and round-winged model. There was the Supermarine Spitfire and the Bullnosed Drummond. Now, though, the skies were filled from horizon to horizon in close formation with bombers - the Giant Fortresses and Super Fortresses.

Gazing up one day we saw a plane suddenly dive down and hit another just below. An almighty explosion punched a huge hole in the sky. Other planes flew on as if nothing had happened because, of course, they had no alternative. We watched fascinated but not horrified. For us children it was just a curious even exciting event. The bits of planes, bodies and parachutes descended to the ground over a wide area at different speeds. Such tragedies and sadness but not through a child's eyes.

Our headmaster - a Mr. Bevin - reminded me so much of the Nazi school teacher in All Quiet on the Western Front except he raged and raved from the other side. At the school there was a huge map of European countries on the wall. Each day at assembly he would gleefully adjust the pins of his coloured cords on the maps to show the advances of the liberating troops. Afterwards we he would cane the pupils who had transgressed the day before. I do not remember him with affection.

I eventually finished up in a Children's Home (Ropes Hostel - anyone out there remember it?) towards the end of the war. The Principal of our Home was Len Hayles who was a registered pacifist. He was an honourable man. West Sussex County Council had allocated him the wartime job of looking after evacuees in the Ropes Hostel at Fernhurst. What an enlightened country where we were able still to honour a man's personal principals at such dangerous times. Len, as we were permitted to call him, never used corporal punishment. He must have been sorely tempted as his bunch of kids were often disturbed, temperamental, maladjusted and difficult. He was firm but kind and eventually won us over. I hope that i benefited from his many hours of counselling as did many others who sought his guidance.

There were many other events which happened which would take too long to tell. One, for instance, related to a young German boy (when we met him he was about our age). He had been rescued from danger by some American troops and the company had then 'adopted' him as a mascot. He was smuggled about in a GIs kitbag. They dress him in a proper uniform and he even had a revolver strapped to his side. They got him into England but event8ually the authorities got hold of the lad and transferred him to our Home. Apparently nobody dared to ask him to removed the revolver. It took two days for Len Hayles to take him into giving up his weapon. The boy had been with the troops for four years in some very dangerous situations. He spoke English/American with no trace at all of a German accent.

I'm sure others have similar tales but I hope the above may be of some interest.

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