蜜芽传媒

Evacuation Memories of a Liobian.
John Malcolm Carson 43/48

Within weeks of September 3rd 1939 I found myself , my mother, younger brother and sister with relatives traveling in a posh car up over Shap on our way to Scotland. I was 8yrs old and as far as I can recall this was my first ride in a private car. The relatives we were traveling with must have been rich, they came from the Cheshire side of the River Mersey. I believe one of them was a medical doctor. One of the boys did eventually become a doctor in Australia. He was on his way to New Galloway to stay with an aunt and uncle and young cousin of mine.

We were going to drop off before him, at a Loch side Cottage near to Castle Douglas where my spinster aunt lived. She supported herself on four acres with hens, selling the eggs to the local grocer. There was no running water in the house and the toilet was an outhouse in the back 4 acres. Water had top be fetched by bucket from the Loch on the opposite side of the road. And of course there was no electricity. The nearest village was about a mile away and one had to walk there to catch a bus. As I said earlier I was 8, my brother was six and my sister was two so it was quite a walk.

When we arrived we found that my aunt had already had a girl evacuee placed there from Glasgow. It made the one bedroom cottage even more than cramped. We lasted there all of one week and returned home to Liverpool where my father was a police sergeant in 鈥淏鈥� Division. At Prescot Street.

That was our first attempt at evacuation, there was a second more successful attempt when the bombs started to fall. We lived in Childwall on the outside of Queens Drive. My brother and I attended Rudston Road School. While there the bombing started and we used to meet in various homes, small groups so that if a bomb got us there would be less of us killed. That was a nice thought. We met in a home just behind the Fiveways shops and the then Police Garage.

The bombing was getting more frequent, most nights we went to bed in the Anderson Shelter rather than take a chance of reaching it before being hit. I can still smell the musty smell from the dampness. Next to the Shelter Dad had obtained a 鈥淛acob鈥檚鈥� biscuit railway box and we had installed chickens for eggs and meat. They eked out the rations for us. We would wake up in the shelter to the sound of the air raid sirens and then wait for the sound of the chickens squawking and the Ack Ack followed by the bombs falling and exploding. The whistling bombs were very frightening because you could hear them coming, it seemed straight at you and there was a sigh of relief when we heard the explosion.. Occasionally we would hear what sounded like a train shunting but knew it was the sound of a land mine exploding. We lived on Oakhampton Road and one of these land mines went off on Bentham Drive. It was strange later to visit the sight of the explosion to see several houses completely obliterated and sitting in the middle half of a semi detached still standing.

With the increased bombing it was decided to ship my brother and I off once again to Scotland, this time to an uncle and aunt on a farm about 9 miles west of Dumfries.. This farm was partly arable and partly hill sheep farm. My uncle was the shepherd with a flock of about 1500 sheep.
The cottage we lived in was the end one of four, each with two rooms only, a bedroom and a living room kitchen combined. The was a single tap (spiggot) across the street and all water had to be carried in bucket and bowls into the house for drinking, cooking and washing.

My aunt and uncle had no children of their own, we became theirs and they became our parents.
This meant that we had to share in the household chores and in 鈥渓ooking鈥� the sheep, snaring rabbits for extra meat, fetching the milk from the farm steading about half a mile away up the hill. It was here that I learnt what doves are saying; coo. cooo coo coocoo.; coo. cooo coo coocoo The story is that an man who was trying to steal a cow from the field at night but he was having great difficulty in separating it from the others. The doves gave him the answer 鈥渢ake too coos stupid, take too coos stupid鈥�.

The milk we collected from the farm was usually done at milking time and virtually came straight from the cow, warm and creamy thick. How I miss that. It would be collected in a milk can and my brother and I would carry it home. On one occasion I decided to show my brother how to swing the can around with the lid off and not spill a drop. My demonstration went perfect but when he tried it he lost about half of the milk over himself. After we got him cleaned up there was the problem of the half empty can. The simple solution was to fill it with water from the spiggot.
The evidence of our crime was there in the tasting and of course discovered.

We went to a school about four miles away in the village of Terregles, my brother being 18mths younger than I got out of school an hour earlier than me and went home on his own. Sometimes we were lucky and got a lift, but not often enough. There were very few vehicles around. One day as I was getting near to home I was met by my brother who cryingly told me not to go home. He had had his tea and the dessert was horrible, he couldn鈥檛 eat it, it was frog sporn. The rule in those days was that you ate what you were given, if you didn鈥檛, you got it for the next meal until it was gone. The dessert was of course tapioca pudding. I like it and helped him out by eating his.

We learnt to do many chores around the farm but on Sunday it was off to church and Sunday School at Irongray Church. There is a well known monument there to the Covenanters. Once every couple of months a professional rabbit catcher would come and clear the rabbits from the hills and off they went to the butchers in Dumfries. At night we would hear the German bombers flying overhead on there way to blast the ship builders on the Clyde. I will always remember the particular droaning of the German aircraft.

In October we were given an extra two weeks off school which I thought was a great idea until I found out that we were to work each week day picking potatoes to help the war effort. I don鈥檛 think my back has been right since.

After a year my uncle moved to another farm, Burnside, which was owned by the widow of a relative. There he was farm manager, a working one. There was a ploughman and a labourer.
The cottage here was a two bedroom one and we had water in the house but the toilet was still down the yard.

On the opposite side of the road built into the dyke was an old bath tub which served as a trough for the animals and for us boys for baths in the summer time.

At Burnside I got to work more with the horses and have been stood on several times. Looking after the sheep after school each day was the first chore after a鈥漺ee piece鈥�. I the winter we had to feed them as well, grinding turnips.

We had to change schools, Stielson School this time instead of having three classes it only had one. 28 children from age 5 to 12 with one teacher. It was a great school and the teacher Miss Jenkinson lived in the schoolhouse on the premises. One winter day when there had been a snow storm my brother and I were the only children to turn up at school. Instead of sending us home we got private tuition for the day. She did however lets us go half and hour early.

We continued to attend the same church in Irongray,. One day during the sermon the minister鈥檚 son and I I sneaked out into the graveyard where we caught a rabbit. After it was dispatched we hid it on the other side of the dyke, however we had been seen and were duly punished. It wasn鈥檛 too severe. One of my Sunday School prizes there was the book 鈥淭wo Years Before the Mast鈥�. I managed to hold onto that book for several years but I think it went astray when I was in the Sudan during National Service. Sunday afternoons were often spent visiting relatives or friends by bicycle. There were three bicycles for the four of us. My brother would set off with my aunt and uncle on the three bikes, when the had gone about a mile he would drop the bike by the roadside and start walking, in the meantime I would walk until I came to the bike and take off after them. I would wave to him as I went passed him and leave the bike further on for him. We would cover up to 10 miles this way. I鈥檓 afraid we couldn鈥檛 leave a bike like that now.

My birthday is on Halloween and for my birthday my aunt told us that we could invite two soldiers for an evening of games and 鈥渄uck apple鈥�. There was an army unit billeted in a country mansion. We dutifully went down there and everyone we asked was on some guard duty or other and eventually we found two who would come. The great night arrived and twelve turned up. A great night was had by all even though it was a bit crowded.

In total we stayed for two years and as it was nearing time for the 11 plus exams and the bombing in Liverpool had eased a bit it was decided that my brother and I would return to Liverpool. I then went to Highfield School in Broadgreen and after a year passed the 11 plus and was accepted at the Inny. (Liverpool Institute Grammar School)

After returning to Liverpool we spent all of our summer holidays in Scotland on the farm.
A great life for us city kids. Working on the farm with German prisoners of War, but that is another story for another time.

John M. Carson 43/48

Liobian = Liverpool Institute Grammar School Old Boy.
Inny = Liverpool Institute Grammar School for Boys.

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