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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Pat Hayward from CSV Action Desk on behalf of Cyril Hayward and has been added to the site with their permission. Mr Hayward fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.
I lived in a terraced house which backed onto Railway Sheds at Tyseley which fed the main and suburban lines connecting Birmingham, the Midlands conurbations and further North to the port of Liverpool and South to London. The area was densely occupied by engineering factories making supplies to the war effort and as such was a prime target for German Air-raids
I attended the local Junior School in Broad Road, Acocks Green. The school underwent its evacuation in late 1940. My Mom took me to the school to catch a Chatabanc (coach) to Retford in Nottingham — my Mom just waved me off — I didn’t cry — I was six after all — I was a big boy. I had a label pinned on my coat with my name on it. Mom made jam sandwiches for the journey and I had a bottle of ginger beer with the wired stopper. A teacher came with us and when we got to Retford we went to a church hall where there were lots of people and they called out people’s names then a child’s home.
I went with a man and lady back to their house. It was a council house — small — pretty much like my own home in Tysely. They didn’t have any children. The man worked on the railway, the lady didn’t work. They were about 60 years old and they seemed old and old fashioned to me. They only gave me a sandwich and I was used to having a cooked dinner at night before my Dad went off to work. Before I had my sandwich they gave me my orders, told me what I had to do — i.e. call them Mr and Mrs — reminded me of my manners, to be in bed 7.00pm — which I wasn’t used to — that I had to say my prayers and reminded me of my personal hygiene. I went to bed very tired and very sad — I missed my Mom. My Mon was 43 years old when I was born and I was 14 years younger than my next brother who was in the R.A.F and went to the Far East so I was very much her baby.
We arrived on the Friday and on the Monday the lady took me to a school where I met up with others from Broad Road School. We swapped stories about where we were staying and a lot of my friends were billeted with each other which made me even more unhappy. I can remember it being winter and cold and during that first week one of the evacuees from Acocks Green fell through the ice on the Canal and was drowned. We were all told afterwards at assembly not to go on the ice.
After the first week I told the teacher that I wanted to go home. I was homesick and my Mom came to take me home. She came on the Midland Red bus. I cried when I saw my Mom.
While I was home we had an air-raid and we hadn’t got a shelter so we stayed in the house and got under the table in the dark. After this my Dad said it was unsafe — I’d only been home a couple of days. A teacher from the school (which was closed) took me back up to Retford on the bus. I cried when I got there because I went back to the same people’s house — it was as if I’d been a naughty and dared to go home — they then got much stricter on me. I had nobody to talk to — they didn’t talk to me — I had no books, nothing.
One day the lady lost her temper and shouted at me and I swore at her. When her husband came home from work she told him what had happened and they told the school and told the school I wanted to go home and I wasn’t coming back. My Mom came and fetched me home again. All this took three weeks at most.
What really amazed me was other friends in the same road where I lived but who went to different schools were not evacuated.
My school was still closed so I went to Great Junior School — I was very happy there and stayed there until I took my grammar school exam and passed for Yardley Grammar School when I was 11 years old — but that’s another story!
I later remember the air-raid shelter arriving — corrugated iron in sections bent to be joined at the top. All the neighbours helped each other dig foundations and put together the sections. Benches were put inside to sit on because in no time at all you had a foot of water in them. No lights in them — dark! You knew when there was going to be an air raid as all the lights went out on the railway. We’d be in the shelter before the sirens went, perhaps with a bag of sandwiches and a flask of tea — then you’d hear the drone of the planes and then the explosions and fires.
I can remember the BSA being bombed several times but the most tragic time was when workers were coming out for lunch — especially mostly women and the German bombs came over at 12.30pm without warning and dive bombed and machine gunned them.
The grammar school, Yardley Grammar School to which I was to go in 1945was bombed and some parts were never repaired. The school was demolished this year in 2005 and rebuilt on another site but Sue managed to salvage a memento from the demolition men — a drain-pipe hopper which is now sitting in my back garden full of beautiful summer flowers.

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