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By 1943 most of the Liverpool evacuees had gone home, but I remember 2 brothers, Lawrence and Danny Doyle, who stayed on a farm not too far from ours. They were there until early 1944 and on school holidays we would cross to one another鈥檚 farms to play. Our farm was on a hill, which went right down to the valley below with a river at the bottom, then steep hilly woodland up to their farm. In fact we could stand on the top of our hills and shout to each other across the valley. They had an Italian Prisoner of War working and living on their farm and I remember him singing Italian songs as he ploughed the top fields, it was almost like listening to the film, The Sound of Music.

After Larry and Danny had gone home, I think I was the last of the Bootle lot to remain. I was to meet my two friends again though after the war had ended. My mum moved to a different part of Bootle and who should also be living in the same street but Larry and Danny Doyle, what a small world.

In the latter part of 1943 some more children came in from the London area. One boy, as I remember, was a very large but gentle giant. I got on very well with him and remember going with him to Builth Wells on a market day and there was a fair pitched in a park alongside the River Wye. There was also an American Army Transport Unit based there and we went over the riverbank to where the American soldiers were washing down their vehicles. Most of the soldiers were black and were really nice volatile guys. I remember one big guy asking us to go and get them some chocolate cookies. We didn鈥檛 know what cookies were so we brought 2 bars of chocolate. They went into peals of laughter and gave us back the chocolate explaining, with some difficulty, that a cookie was a biscuit. They then gave us more money and sent us off to get the chocolate cookies. We had no sweet rations for the rest of that month.

I don鈥檛 remember racism being an issue in that area and there were ethnic minorities within the evacuees. I do remember being scared at one time when we were told to be careful going home in the dark because there was a Gypsy caravan parked on a piece of land at the back of our farm. My sister Lily and I were very wary on our walk home, but as we passed the caravan a cheery voice called out to us and we were greeted with a wave. We got quite used to them during the short time they were there.

I remember going to the chapel Sunday school with Mr Williams. It was a mile away through the lanes. There was a barbed wire fence dividing the woodlands from some fields and one day as we approached this area we could see something fluttering on the barbed wire. As we got closer we could make out that it was a bird of some sort. It turned out to be a brown owl, which had got its wing feathers tangled in the wire. I held the bird while Mr Williams cut the tangled feathers away. I have never before, or since, seen a creature so very grateful for helping it. The owl ran away and then came back to within 2 yards of us and inclined it鈥檚 head as much as to say thank you for what you have done, then it flew away.

It was mid 1944 that I 鈥渇lew away鈥� from Tyn Llewyn back to my mum and my family. We had been bombed out of our original home in Bootle and we lived with a cousin whose mother and father had died during the early part of the war. It was a 3 bedroomed house in the suburbs in a nice area. When I first returned home everyone wanted to come to the house to listen to me talking with a Welsh accent. I suppose I was a bit of a celebrity, but this only lasted for about 6 weeks then it wore off.

From 1944 to 1947 I went to a school in Bootle called Roberts Drive.

I returned to Tyn Llewyn and the Williams family in 1947 hoping in my heart that the magic would still be there. Unfortunately it was not. I came home again after 3 months.

In October 1990 my sister Lily and her husband went for a weeks break into the mid Wales area and traced Ruby鈥檚 whereabouts and went to visit her. Ruby had married and had long left Tyn Llwyn farm. Herbie has left the farm also. I have managed to contact both of them by letter and sincerely hope to visit them in the near future. The changes I expect to experience will, no doubt, be stunning.

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