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This story has been submitted to the People's War website personally by Elizabeth Taylor nee Leather and added to the site with her permission.

In August 1940, I parted from my parents on York Station, I can still remember the 鈥減uffing鈥� of the huge steam engine with its distinctive smell, and joined a number of other children who were destined to be taken to Canada for the duration of the war. I was five years old and the baby of the group.
My Grandmother鈥檚 brother, Tom Birch and his daughter Madeline, had suggested that my parents take advantage of the evacuation scheme to send me out for the duration of the war, together with my cousin Pamela Hurst who lived in London where the bombing was already severe.
300 children aged between five and fifteen years of age, together with their escorts, whose job it was to look after 14 or 15 of the children each and a large number of refugees, set sail from Glasgow to a country that was to be our home for the next five years. Several destroyers initially escorted out ship, with a battleship in the lead, and we proceeded to zigzag across the Atlantic for seven days. I remember having to wear a lifebelt at all times and practising boat drill every day. It must be remembered that German U-Boats were on the look-out for British shipping in the Atlantic and although all ships carrying children had the red cross painted on their sides, this did not stop them from being torpedoed. A liner sailing in another convoy astern of us was sunk and, as a result, a large number of children were drowned. Thereafter, no other children, including my cousin Pamela, were allowed to go to Canada. I was lucky to get there in one piece and, I gather from my mother, that she had some sleepless nights wondering whether I was safe as she had not been told, for security reasons, which ship I had sailed in.
We disembarked at Halifax, Nova Scotia, after which many of the children had to travel across Canada by train, some as far as Vancouver, but I was lucky as my 鈥渘ew family鈥� lived near Quebec.
I cannot remember being particularly homesick and I soon settled into my new life with my cousin Madeline and Uncle Tom. Sometimes we lived in the country and sometimes in towns 鈥� I well remember having my appendix removed in the hospital in Springhill, a small mining town in Nova Scotia when I was 8 years old. The local newspaper ran the story and the hospital was inundated with well-wishers and toys for the little English girl so far away from her mummy and her home. I ended up with about a dozen dolls which made me very happy. The summers always seemed warm and sunny, and the winters very cold with huge piles of snow piled at the roadsides, and I learned to ice skate and to toboggan. Whilst living in the country, I attended a small school with all the children aged between 5 and 11 in one room. The older children then went to the nearest town until they were 16. However, when we moved to Halifax, I attended a large primary school just like any school in this country.

I will always remember May1945 and the news that the war in Europe was over and I would be going home. I was 10 years old and in a very short time I was back on board a liner sailing for England. No zigzagging this time, straight home to Liverpool and then by train back to York and my Mother. However, I had a shock when I returned home and went to school, for the discipline was much harder and so were the lessons added to which, I had to get used to doing sums with pounds, shillings and pence and learning the English language all over again. For instance, I had no idea what a 鈥渇ortnight鈥� was and I was teased because of my accent. I couldn鈥檛 understand why I couldn鈥檛 just go into a shop and buy candy 鈥� I found it hard that everything was rationed (even if it was available) as for instance there were no bananas or oranges!

This apart, I settled in quite quickly and was happy so be back with my parents but, I recalled so many of the older children on the boat coming back who were now young men and women and, I clearly remember their unhappiness at being taken away from their adoptive families and their well established lives to return to families they no longer knew. Many of them vowed to return to Canada as quickly as possible and I often wonder how many of them actually did.

I myself never did return but I still correspond with two dear friends I made out there, Joanne Bessonette and Anne Crooks both of whom, like me, married and had children of their own. I did in fact meet Anne in Baden-Baden, Germany, many years later when she was visiting her daughter, who was serving with the Canadian Air Force over there and I took my eldest daughter Jane, over to meet them.

I often wonder if, under similar circumstances, I would have been brave enough to send three children all that way with no idea when I would see them again, if ever, but I very much doubt if I could have borne to be parted from them. However, you never know how you would react in face of the danger our parents faced in 1940.

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