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‘Evacuees. Guests imposed? Wonderful mothers’

I feel we went to Llangefni in coaches directly from ‘Oulton’ in Pleasance Street, Liverpool. Pleasance Street is or was a short distance from The Adelphi Hotel in Lime Street… So many things have changed in sixty years.

A group of we students - schoolboys in uniform! - were billeted at Rhosmierch a mile or so up a hill out of Llangefni.
Arthur, my younger brother, and I were sent to a young family in ‘Sarn Villas’, Rhosmierch. I think they were called Owen.
As usual I recall little. I remember it took twelve buckets of water from the communal pump to fill the copper for baths for Arthur and me. We shared a double bed I think. I don’t remember if we helped with the housework.
A bus took us to school but the walk back from school was a bit of a slog and sometimes we’d climb an old quarry on the way.
On one occasion we accompanied a schoolmate to his billet on the bottom road and, instead of walking some distance back to join our top road, we went straight up the hill across fields to Sarn Villas. Near the top a dangerous looking farmer with a menacing shotgun intercepted us. He did not know who we were; we might have been spies looking for Owen Glydwr. We explained we were billeted in Sarn Villas — in the next field. He was somewhat placated. I feel he was worried for the health of his sheep?

I’d heard stories about sexual goings on in Boarding Schools. Oulton when away was a bit like a boarding school…

I think Oulton occupied the County School in the mornings.
Some of us frequently bought ‘Lyon’s Individual Fruit Pies’ and ate them at midday on a sunny hillside and dozed in the sun.
The weather in Llangefni was warm.
How little one remembers.
There was a major fire in the town. We, out of town, saw nothing of it. I think the fire was in the County School.
It was rumoured the fighting of the fire prejudiced the town’s water reserves. Oulton was re-evacuated to Cardigan

The journey to Cardigan was by chartered train.
Different from travelling by coach, there was room to move on the train and I could well imagine we acted like a boys’ version of St Trynians’ (which came later?). It was a pleasant journey but tedious, and some boys played ‘catch’ with a few of the train’s light bulbs.
It was dark and wet when we got to Cardigan.
The whole school was conducted to The County School, which was warm and bright especially appreciated after the gloom of the train and The Blackout. A meal was spread for us and we were waited on by County School staff and students.
The Welcome was palpable, but I recall no speeches.

After the meal we were conducted in groups to our billets.
I have heard evacuees often claimed to be the last to be taken. I think Arthur and I really were?

Arthur and I were conducted, at last, to a shoe shop in the High Street. Was it Lloyd’s? I don’t think we were long out of bed.
After breakfast the following morning we were taken to ‘Lloyd’s Bank House’ near by in the High Street; to the Jones family - Another billet.
I feel the Joneses were not required to have Arthur and me. They already had two evacuees - nieces - from Sanderstead, London. How kind they were to have us.
In Lloyd’s Bank House were Mr & Mrs Jones, and Melville the housekeeper, Ronny and Celia, Judith and her sister from Sanderstead, Arthur and I, Rusty the corgi and Sooty the cat.

I believe our Host of The Shoe Shop had just died! And his body was in the shop even as we were sleeping there.
Fancy that! How kind they were to take us in that night.

The School was given an official welcome in ‘Bethesda’. The speaker said “Boys! I must warn you about Cardies: They can buy from Jews and sell to Scotsmen at a profit.” It was probably accepted local humour with little substance?
I do not recall how long we were in Cardigan. Was it six months? I recall it as one of the happiest times of my life!

I have pondered on Cardigan - That happy time - but no coherent set of memories has come. Could memories ever be recovered? Perhaps not.
Could ‘that Cardigan’ be there if I went to stay in South Wales now?

I went to Gwbert and saw wild seals and puffins for the first time. I had seen a seal in The Aquarium in Liverpool Museum. If it were still there would it survive the raids?
Was it to Moylgrove we walked and saw ‘a Witches’ Cauldron’ — a geological feature; and did it swirl at the changing of the tide?
I seem to remember Cilgerran and coracles.

One night there were explosions in the direction of the river. An adult said it was the police looking for a body. That was probably a lot of rubbish. I wonder what it was.

Ronny Jones took me in the car to Newcastle Emlyn, on an errand for his father perhaps, or was it to Melville’s family? The river was in flood.

There was a table tennis room on the first floor of Lloyd’s Bank House where Arthur and I enjoyed playing at any time - until instructed not to use it during banking hours!

Mr Jones had a porcelain Bath Tidy that I broke. I tore my school blazer. I mention this particularly because the blazer was taken to ‘The Invisible Mender’s’ and was soon returned. Examine it as I did I failed to see where that long tear had been. How was the repair done!
I do not know how these damages were paid for. I suppose Mr Jones paid for them?

I went down the garden of the Bank House exploring, and opened the door in the high garden wall to explore the back road. That was a very close thing! I nearly stepped through the door to a considerable drop!

Arthur’s friend, Nogindra Barua (or some such), was billeted on a farm and the farmer put a pony at his disposal. I wonder did Nog ever learn to ride?

We were in The County School half the day. The cinema put on matinees for us about once a week. I remember closing my eyes during ‘The Face at the Window’.
Oulton enforced a curfew on us. Was it seven pm? An ‘exeat’ was required if a student wished to be out after that, even with ones host.

Oulton never organised any out of school activities that I recall, but Arthur and other students formed ‘an aeromodeling club’, which concentrated on ‘Duration Models’. Surely such clubs should be encouraged in public parks now.

Mr Gibbs had musical aspirations for Oulton. Did we sing for the people of Cardigan?

There seem to be so few memories of one of the happiest times of my life.
What happened to Ronny Jones? I do not recall the flashes on his uniform. Nor do I know of the Regiment that marched along the High Street each morning. I suppose Ronny and the Regiment left Cardigan but I did not notice, or don’t recall.

Two words come to me: At Assembly one morning (where was that?) the Head instructed the Oulton staff to give him details of their ‘allotments’. This word made me think of Dad ‘digging for Victory’ in Liverpool.
To Lloyd’s Bank House came some adults - perhaps curious to see Arthur and me? They discussed the word ‘evacuees’ and were amused at its physical meaning. I feel it was not intended as a reflection on we scousers.

Arthur and I were moved from Lloyd’s Bank House. Arthur went up the town and I went across the High Street into ‘Jones Ironmongers’… Two mature brothers and their sister and the Housemaid. It was luxury, especially felt at seven o’clock on bitter winter mornings as I heard the troops marching by!
That move seems to show something interesting if not actually important. I was just across the road from the bank where I had lived in the family, where I had been so well looked after. Yet I feel I never saw them again? Did I see them in Church? I never presumed on that brief former life. I never rang their bell. I was neither upset nor sad. Did I accept my status as ‘a sack of potatoes’ to be moved hither and thither at the will of others? Twenty years later (in the 1960s?) I had one meeting with Celia in London. She was then a nurse at The Middlesex Hospital. But how did that meeting come about? Did I exchange a single letter at that time with Mrs Jones? And if so why and how?

How strange!
‘One of the happiest times of my life’. Yet there are no memories.
Is it surprising I am trying to write about it!

I vaguely recall waiting outside The Town Hall (or something) almost as a routine? During the bitter winter I took care not to touch the cannon there. I seem to remember a thermometer on the wall but never reading it. Many people and schoolboys wore ‘Wellingtons’ or ‘Gum boots’ but I don’t think I had any.

The Teifi froze and we were forbidden to go on it. But a few of us did! and saw Mr Buckley, the Science master, on it too. How is ice tested for safety? Surely it was dangerous. If it had broken we would have died. Near the bank the ice was thinner and did break and I found myself balanced on a timber pile of an old jetty. I got to the bank with Arthur playing the fool. He had not gone on the ice and was scathing about my stupidity. I stuffed snow down his neck!

I have an image of The Parish Church lit up. But how could that be? There was the blackout. I have only just thought what an effort it must have been to blackout a church!
I went to Communion one morning with the Joneses and was sick. Mr Jones missed the service administering to me.

Oulton hired coaches to take us home for Christmas, on repayment.

It was ‘a Christmas Card winter’. An image comes to mind of The Parish Church especially when I hear ‘In the deep mid winter’ first heard there.

It was no longer winter when Oulton quit Cardigan and returned to Liverpool. It was a decision of the parents.
Some of the staff cycled back to Liverpool.
I never returned to Cardigan, nor did I write even one letter of thanks. I passed through once. Can one/dare one ever return to a place of emotion.
It was such a very short time.

I asked myself if there were any images, more than others, coming to me of Cardigan and The Parish Church and Melville seemed to be the answer.

To Conclude:

Well, that’s it!
I hope my contributions to the Archive are of interest and, perhaps, of value.
I did no ‘research’. I set out to write it as it came to memory or did not, with ‘the tessarae’ — this was so - and ‘the lacunae’ — was it thus?
Memory may not concern itself with time and sequence.
Perhaps a reading of the newspapers of Llangefni and Cardigan might have revived memories of being an evacuee, but with what result?

Doug returned from the war minus his cap and with a black eye.
I asked him about it and he said that on the train from Austria some troops had made scathing remarks about The Artillery and then failed to take advantage of his request for apologies!

JOHN KNIBB

[This story was submitted to the People's War site by Wolverhampton Libraries on behalf of John Knibb and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions

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