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I was 3 years old in the May that my family evacuated in the June of 1940. Armed with our boarding passes and one small case each, Aunt Ethel came to fetch us all in her car and we duly arrived on the quay. Unfortunately so had hundreds more with no means of getting away. During a long, hot day my Aunt and my mother's imagination got somewhat overheated. "You should come with us Ethel," my mother urged her sister. Ethel thought perhaps she ought to, which would have come as a severe shock to Uncle Tom, at home and patiently waiting for his wife to get his lunch! "You will never get on the boat without a child in your arms!" my mother announced dramatically some time later. Ethel was inclined to agree and I was duly handed over.

At that precise moment the "STORK" which until very recently had been used for transporting cattle, manoeuvred cautiously to the quayside, the gang planks were let down and the rush was on. Swept away in the tide of struggling humanity, Aunt Ethel fetched up against the customs office wall still clutching me. When she had recovered her dignity and her hat she was startled to hear a boat's siren and looking round, noticed to her horror that the "STORK" was already in the harbour mouth and heading for England.

I therefore have the unique distinction of belonging to a family who all evacuated safely except for their youngest member who was left behind in shortly to be occupied Jersey.

Nothing is wholly bad or disastrous however. For five wonderful years I was an only child and the proud possessor of a Mummy and Daddy who put me at the very centre of their life. My war started when my real family came back in 1946. A family I did not know.

Jill Harris

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