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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by Three Counties Action, on behalf of Dorothy Lumley, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I am Dorothy M. Lumley

September 3rd. 1939 (2 months after my 7th. Birthday) was a Sunday. At this time I lived in North Kensington, usually on a Sunday I went to the 11a.m. service at St. Thomas’ Church in Kensal Road W.10 (where it remains to this day) with my Dad and Grandparents, but not that day. We went into the room at the back of the shop next door to my Grandparents where many friends and neighbours were gathered to listen to the 11a.m. radio broadcast by the Prime Minister Mr. Chamberlain. He made his short speech and then we all knew that war with Germany had been declared.

Dad took me back home where my Mother gave me the biggest hug I had ever has. I remember noticing that she was a little bit fat and was wearing a large overall. I don’t know why I had not noticed it before. After the short goodbye cuddle to my sister Rene and me got into Dad’s car and he drove us to Blaenavon South Wales. We were to stay with our Auntie Nell and her family; Uncle Charlie, Uncle Oz, Cousin Jim and cousin Bob. Auntie Nell and Uncle Charlie also had a daughter Dolly, but she was working away, and I don’t remember ever meeting her. This family were not total strangers, we had visited them previously. We went to all the local schools and learned to sing Welsh songs and to count in Welsh. We were quite happy and were being cared for, though the surroundings were very strange. The cottage was an end terrace building with two downstairs rooms and two upstairs rooms. The staircase was no more than a strong ladder in the corner of the front room and we were told to come down backwards because it was safer. There was one cold water tap in the house (the same as at home though Mum had a gas stove to heat the water). Auntie Nell kept a huge black kettle on the range where the fire was always alight. There was no bathroom, but we did not have one at home either. Mum heated our bath water for the portable bath in copper that was in the corner of the scullery.

At our Aunts everyone washed in a large earthenware bowl. Uncle Charlie and Jim were miners and this bowl was specially filled for them when they came home from their shift. I had never seen anyone as dirty as they were after their work shift. Bob was still a schoolboy of about 13 or 14 years old. He was a grammar school pupil I think because there was never any talk of him leaving school while we were there.
At home we had a flush toilet, but at my Aunt’s the toilet was across a little lane at the back of the house and down a long garden path to a little shed. In this shed there was a scrubbed wooden board with a hole in it, and underneath a large bucket. I don’t know anything about how it was emptied.
My Dad managed to visit us just before Christmas that year, and said he had something sad and something glad to tell me. First he told me that my dear Grandfather had died and then he told me I had a new baby sister, called Georgina.
We were in Blaenavon for a number of months. I remember bobbing for apples at Halloween (I had never done that before).
I remember trudging to school through thick snow, and the grownups talked a lot about power cables coming down. We were brought back home sometime during 1940. I can’t remember dates but we met our new sister. Mum and Dad said we were talking with Welsh accents. The war had not yet reached London so we settled down at home again. Dad used to listen to the news on the radio and stick little flags into a big map of Europe that he had pinned on to the kitchen wall. Soon the air-raids began. I was terrified of the sound of exploding bombs and heavy gunfire. It was such a relief to know that thunder really was thunder. Our relay wireless was on all day and it would broadcast advance warning of an air raid.

Programmes would be interrupted by a mans voice saying “An air-raid warning in the London District has now been officially circulated”. We had been issued with a large metal table — it filled the room. It was known as a Morrison shelter. We all got under the table when there was an air-raid warning. Sometimes we all slept under there. Everyone was issued with gas masks. The baby had a sort of enclosed carrycot. Later she had a Mickey Mouse mask.
Before Georgie was a year old it was decided that Mum, my two sisters and me should be evacuated.

I don’t remember the journey but I do remember the little hall in Oakthorpe Staffordshire crowded with people waiting to be billeted. That is to be found a place to live. My friend Jean and her Mother were taken in by the headmaster of the local school and his wife Mr. and Mrs. Allen. Later I discovered this man was a bit of a tyrant. He was disliked by all his pupils. Mum my two sisters and myself were taken to the local Post-Office cum Bakery Cum General Store. Luckily we were all kept together. The family were Mr. and Mrs. Ward who ran the shop, William and Jack their sons who worked a smallholding together as well as helping to run the shop, and Rita their daughter, who travelled to Leicester daily to work. Tilly — William’s wife also lived there. It was a fairly large house and to us quite luxurious.

On arrival we had a bath in a real bathroom with lashings of hot water on tap. The water was so hot it felt cold! We settled down again, went to another school, made more new friends, and the war seemed miles away. Dad whose business was in transport mainly house removals was able to visit us occasionally. I remember having my 9th birthday there. I received a card from my Uncle Ted who said it was the last single digit birthday I would have. Eventually it was decided that Mum had been away from home long enough, so she Rene and Georgie went back home. I don’t remember the reason but I stayed on with another family where Mum had made friends. Perhaps I had settled at school and it was felt that I would be better staying put. I was quite happy with the arrangement.

So I went to their little cottage. No running water at all here. Water was obtained from a tap in the courtyard. Four families got their water from this one tap. Auntie cooked on an open range. There was a flush toilet but to get to it you had to cross the courtyard and go along the path at the side of the allotments which were tended by the local inhabitants. Uncle Fred had one of these patches and very proud of it he was too. I lived here with Auntie Hilda Uncle Fred and their son Jack (about 6 at the time) and for a short time Peggy another evacuee from Birmingham.
Again I was cared for and quite happy.

I enjoyed the freedom, exploring the lanes, playing in the fields and getting to know which plants and berries could be eaten and which were poisonous. I did help around the house, but was no way a drudge. I did the washing up and sometimes helped with the dusting. There was only room for a sideboard a table and a couch in their tiny living room. Sometimes I prepared the vegetables for cooking. One day I peeled Uncle Fred’s seed potatoes for his dinner by mistake. I dreaded him coming home, he was also a miner, and always came home covered in coal dust. Although he was not pleased with what I had done he was kind about it.
I was back in London in 1943 this time with a midlands accent. I took the scholarship (now known as the 11+) at Droop Street School in Westminster.

Rene and I used to spend most of the long summer holidays in Oakthorpe, where it was good to meet up with old friends again. We were there in August 1945 for VJ Day, when the war was officially over. I danced holes in my shoes on Oakthorpe square that evening. My experience as an evacuee was a happy one. So many people had the same experience that it was accepted as part of life. Of course I missed my family and worried about them, but I said my prayers before going to sleep every night and especially asked that Mummy, Daddy, Rene and Georgie were kept safe.

I am still in contact with Jack, and have visited occasionally. His parents are no longer with us but I remember them with tenderness.

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