大象传媒

.

The author of this story has understood the rules and regulations of the site and has agreed that this story can be entered on the People's War web site.

I come from a family of 7 children, 3 girls much older than me and 2 girls and a boy much younger. The older girls were all at work during the war. I was 7 when the war broke out and by the time I was 9 陆 my parents decided to have the four younger ones evacuated, due to the extensive bombing in our area (Epsom).

All four of the younger children were evacuated to the north of England (Lancashire). We were taken from Pound Lane School in Epsom, by bus to Epsom Station to Euston in London and from there we were put on a train to be transported to the north of England. The only possessions we had was a small case each containing our clothing and a gas mask. We had no idea and neither did our parents where we were going. At the time my brother was the youngest and he was under five years of age.

We were taken to Barrow in Furness where we spent one night in a school. The following day we were then taken by coach to Ulverston. At Ulverston we were paraded in the streets as evacuees, we were then taken to different villages, although they did try to keep families together. We were taken to a church hall and the local people could come and choose which ones they would take. Because my father had given me strict instructions that we should all stay together, it was very difficult. Eventually we were split up, unfortunately nobody wanted four children. I stayed with my brother, but my two sisters were billeted in separate families, so we four were split between three families.

We were all at the same school so we did used to see each other on a daily basis. Our parents did not know where we were for 3 陆 weeks. Three of us were well looked after and one was abused, not sexually but she was made to scrub floors and work hard after school, she was quite ill as a result of this. After 18 months my parents came up to see the situation, only to find that our sister was ill. As a result of this our parents took us all back to Epsom, even though the bombing was still on. Unfortunately my sister was only given 48 hours to live by the doctor, but she was strong and survived.

For the remaining war time we stayed in Epsom as a family, we used the Anderson shelter in the garden during bombing raids. All four of us went back to Pound Lane School and we used the air raid shelters whilst we were at school.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.