大象传媒

We were taught in the local village school which was just one large room heated by a round cast iron, enclosed fire, which burnt coke. It stood in the centre of the room, and seemed very primitive to me after comparing it with the Central heating that we had at the school back in Birmingham. We had our own teacher who had come with us from our own school, I suppose there would have been about twenty of us, and we were taught lessons alongside the local children, it wasn't a very satisfactory way, but under the circumstances, I don't suppose there were any other options. I remember my father visited me once during my stay at this farm, and he went back to Birmingham well stocked with eggs bacon and even a Chicken, because by now, I think these things were beginning to be in short supply. Just before Christmas Gerald went back home, along with most of the other evacuees, that had come with me, mainly I think, because the wholesale bombing that had been expected, hadn't materialised. I wasn't taken back myself because having no mother, Dad must have thought Reg and myself were much better off staying in the country. After some months the school Authorities decided to concentrate all the children from our school into one area where there would be sufficient numbers to warrant a teacher from Birmingham. So the day came when I had to pack my bags and leave "Much Cowan" in Herefordshire, and move 20 or 30 miles closer to home, to a village called Whitbourne, which was in the county of Worcestershire. I was billeted this time with the Head Gardener to a very large mansion, called Gains, standing in acres of it's own land, it was so big it had two drives, each about a mile long with a lodge house at the beginning. The house where I was to live was on the estate, and close to a large walled garden. The garden was on a slight slope, and at the bottom was a lake which was about two hundred metres by 50 metres, this was one of two such lakes and there were a lot of very big golden Carp swimming around. Visitors staying for the weekend at the big house would spend time fishing in these lakes.

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