大象传媒

EVACUATION
The story of my Second World War experience began on Monday, 28th August,1939 when my brother John (aged 6) and I (aged 11) reported to school, St. Ethelburga's, Barking, Essex at 7.0 a.m. Nothing happened that day as regards evacuation and we were told to report again on Friday, 1st September. This we did and we found ourselves being transported with fellow pupils by train to Paddington and then on to Oxford. Buses awaited us there and took us to a village called Chinnor.
There we came across a gentleman known as the Billeting Officer. I remember that he took my brother and I to a billet but the householder declined to have us, so the Billeting Officer searched around and we landed up with an elderly couple named Saw. He was a farm worker. John and I stayed with the couple for 3 months.
In the interim, my father, a Civil Servant in the Air Ministry, was evacuated with his job to Harrogate leaving my mother and two other brothers living still at Barking. The siblings were aged 3 years and 4 months. However, mum with these two boys was evacuated a little later to Taunton. So the family was well and truly split up. The Taunton contingent did not stay there very long before returning to Barking. Conditions at Taunton, particularly those of a sanitary type, were not what mum was used to. Thus, there was a retreat back to the land of running water etc!
The housing situation was sorted out in December when dad managed to rent a house in Harrogate and we all came together to live there.

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