蜜芽传媒

After watching 鈥淕oodnight Mr. Tom鈥� on television my husband remarked on the similarity of his experiences as an evacuee with those of the boy. Now aged 75 and registered blind he still has very vivid memories of that period. This is his story.

In August, 1939, I was 11 years old and had just passed the Scholarship and was due to continue my education at the local Grammar School but Hitler put the block on that. When war broke out I was living with my parents, two brothers and two sisters in a two-roomed terrace flat in Gateshead, on the River Tyne.

Our favourite pastime was playing down by the Tyne at an area known as the 鈥淪andybanks鈥�. Here we enjoyed games of football and cricket. One of the boys had a bat and ball (his dad was in employment!). We played without boots as some of the team didn鈥檛 own any. My brother and I left ours behind the front door and hoped our mother wouldn鈥檛 find them. Even today I am not comfortable in boots. Sometimes my brother would help me to collect driftwood from the river bank. When it had dried out we chopped it into sticks, tied it in bundles of three, put them on a home-made bogy (pram wheels and a plank of wood) and attempted to sell these at the homes of employed men for the sum of ld for the bundle of three. If the lady of the house thought the bundles were too small we would disconnect a spare bundle and divide it between the three for sale. Other money-making schemes included washing huge lemonade wagons when they returned at the end of each day from their rounds. Usually we ended up turning the hosepipe on one another. Great fun! At one time we helped a coalman to fill his bags with coal. Unfortunately there was a lot of horseplay between us and he would only employ us if he was very busy. Sometimes we acted as 鈥榯outs鈥� for the gamblers in the back lane. All for a few coppers if we were lucky.

Then the Local Authority decided that we should be evacuated as this was a highly industrial area. As a result of this decision I found myself awaiting the train to take us all to Saltburn-by-the-Sea in Yorkshire. We must have looked a sorry bunch 鈥� pale and skinny. But oh what excitement! Imagine going on a holiday to the seaside for more than one day. The parents, of course, were very upset remembering World War I and its consequences. The future looked bleak.

Eventually we boarded the train, along with name tags attached to our clothing, our gas mask, parcel of clothing and a brown paper carrier bag containing a tin of Libby鈥檚 corned beef, a tin of fruit and a large Kit Kat. Some of the children were looking a bit apprehensive but the teachers chivvied them along. For myself, I was full of anticipation at eating the chocolate bar as soon as possible.

It seemed a long journey but we eventually arrived at Saltburn station. The sky was clear and we looked for the beach and the sea. A day trip to the seaside had been very rare indeed, only undertaken when one of the members of our extended family died and we collected the insurance money.

I was billeted with three other boys and two teachers in a very large, three-storied house. The owner was an Undertaker whose wife was Scottish. We did not see much of them as the maid looked after us. I slept on the third floor of the house. (It was an experience going upstairs to bed). After settling in the other boys and I went down to explore the beach. There we found an 鈥楨nd of the Pier鈥� theatre and a wooden hut which sold sweets on the beach. After a while we became hungry and set out for 鈥榟ome鈥� and tea! Unfortunately we had forgotten the number of the door where we lived! We did manage to find it, of course. I remember always feeling hungry while we were in Saltburn, probably because of the sea air which, after the smoky atmosphere of Gateshead, was bracing to say the least. One morning we woke up to find there had been a storm during the night and the wooden beach hut had been demolished. We raced down and discovered the beach was strewn with chocolate bars. Manna from heaven! That day we didn鈥檛 experience the pangs of hunger, only the pangs of nausea.

After a short while the Undertaker and his wife decided to move to Middlesbrough and we were obliged to move into a similar house in the same street. I was sorry to leave this billet as we were happy there. Our new hostess was an Italian widow.

During our stay in Saltburn we witnessed a German submarine bombed by Coastal Command aircraft and brought to the surface. We saw the German sailors on the beach in the distance. On another occasion as we sat on the top promenade sunning ourselves we heard the chatter of machine guns and right above us, way up high, we saw the vapour trails of a dog-fight.
Very exciting! However, the house on the other side of the street took a direct hit from an H.E bomb a short while later and we were immediately sent home. Gateshead Council asked for volunteers to go to Saltburn and bring us home by bus. I particularly remember that journey because I was placed in the care of a Gateshead cattle drover who worked about three days a week at the Cattle Market. Consequently he always smelled of cattle!

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