Wembley, Middlesex, 1939 approximately.
The picture on the left was taken at a studio where we wore borrowed clothes and shoes. The gloves and toys were also borrowed. The other picture, where we are a little older, shows the clothes we normally wore, and wherever we went we had to wear a cap. I am the one on the left in both pictures. My brother Jim is on the right.
Evacuation
My older brother Jim and I were told that we had to go up to Lancashire on the train to stay with my mother's brother and his family. We thought it would just be for a few days but it turned out to be several months. I was just over 3 at the time.
We had a label attached to our jacket that had some information on where we were going, who we were, and where we had come from. Most of the journey I don't remember except that we sat in the guard's carriage and during the journey he pointed out a notice on the side of the track saying that we were 100 miles from London.
We stayed in my uncle's house in Great Harwood, Lancashire, and almost immediately we were sent to school even though I was just over 3 years old. The other children at the school did not like us. They thought we were posh as we had a London accent. We were also the only children in the school who wore shoes. They all wore clogs — a wooden sole with a leather top nailed to the sole. We were harassed almost every day and were glad when school was over.
The only nice thing I remember about my time in Lancashire was that sometimes, after school, on the way home my brother and I passed an old man digging his garden. He used to talk to us in a friendly way and sometimes give us sticks of rhubarb. At first we used to take these to our home to help out but when we did this we never saw the rhubarb again. So after a while, we used to eat it before we got home. We were asked a few times why we had not brought home any rhubarb. Sadly, we told our first lie — "the man was not in his garden today". One day, they saw rhubarb on my teeth and I got caned.
It was just after Xmas that we were put on a train back to beautiful Wembley and my lovely mother. I think she knew we were unhappy being away from our real home.
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