大象传媒

I want to record my memories,as a 77 year old man, of the years 1939 - 1942,when as a pupil of Highbury County School in North London, I was evacuated to Kimbolton in Huntingdonshire. After a few weeks without any schooling we were all taken to a fresh location in Somerset where we settled into life in the twin towns of Midsomer Norton and Radstock.

I was lucky in the "billet" to which I was allocated and remember my stay with pleasure. My story tells of town boys coping with the unfamiliar world of the country, of the attitudes of the "locals" to evacuees, of German air raids and aerial battles in daylight raids on Bath. It tells of life on Somerset farms when we learned about the land, the crops and the animals at the annual school "Harvest Camp". It concludes with the sitting of the "General School Certificate" exam at 16, under wartime conditions, and finally leaving school to go home to London and seek a job.

The story is a small part extracted from the story of my life which I am recording for the benefit of my grandchildren so that they may be aware of where their forefathers came from, what they did, how they lived etc. It starts with a description of the life of a typical London child in the 30s, the struggles of a widow with 5 kids to survive and feed & clothe her family.

I estimate I am about half way with this work, and I find that my memory is fast deteriorating so I must hurry the remainder.