大象传媒

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May 1943. I was taken by car to the Croydon railway station and put on a train.
I did not know where I was going but when we arrived at the station; I was taken off the train by a railway worker and handed over to a lady. She asked me my name and when I told her, she gave me a little label, on which my name was already written. She took me to another platform and put me on a steam train and told me I would be met when it when it got to the end of the line. I had no idea how far away it was. I was four years old.

We arrived in Swanage, after 6 录 hours. There was no food on the entire journey. I don鈥檛 remember thinking about wether it was exciting, or frightening, I just got on and did as I was told. I do remember thinking how great it was to be travelling on my first steam train, the first train I鈥檇 ever been on.

A man that looked like a farmer, with a horse and cart came to meet me from the train. At the time, I thought this man must be who I was going to be staying with but he was only ferrying me to my new home.

I ended up at a school that had been converted to dormitories. There were about 30 children already there, mostly from London and the surrounding area, and of varying ages. Most of them didn鈥檛 like me, because I spoke 鈥減osh鈥�, from Surrey.

The woman in charge, we called her 鈥淎untie Peg鈥�. She was EVIL! We were made to do work that was unsuitable for children; we were underfed and we were not allowed to write home and tell.

The beds were awful. Basically wooden crates, with a very thin mattress on them, one sheet doubled over, for top and bottom, one blanket and no pillow.

I hated it. I was there for two long years; I got to come home just before the end of the war, as Surrey had quietened down by then.

On returning home, my dad met me at Clapham Junction, where we got another train to Croydon and then we got a taxi to my house. That was extremely rare. My dad must have been treating me to the taxi ride because my arrival home was such a special event. We never did it again!

Mum had made a special meal for me. Cheese and Potato Pie! Delish!

I returned to my own school one week later and we had to talk about our evacuation experience. I actually won a prize for the retelling of my story. The prize was a pencil set and that made my awful evacuation all worthwhile!

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