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At eight years old in May 1940 I was evacuated to Longford nr Derby. We arrived with gas masks in cardboard boxes and name labels attached to our navy blue velour coats, after having said tearful goodbyes to mums, most of the dads were in the army by then. We left Eastwood School nr Southend by coaches to London and from there on to Derbyshire. I remember it was dark when we arrived at Longford and we were put into the Village Hall where adults came and took their pick of the children.

I was taken in by the manager of the local dairy and his wife, they had a small daughter of three years old called Marie. I hated it. I remember crying and writing very sad letters home, one of which my aunt kept for many, many years. My dad was stationed near Derby with the army so my mum came there to live and got a job working on the buses. She would come and visit me at weekends.

After nine months of evacuation my mum had an affair with the man I was billeted with. My dad got custody of me, but being in the army and therefore unable to care for me himself, he took me to Hadleigh in Essex to live with an aunt until the end of the war. I had a very happy five years there. We weathered the bombs; standing at the front door at night watching search lights, tracer bullets, listening to guns blasting off and picking shrapnel up in the mornings. The most frightening were the V1’s or Doodle Bugs, I would lie in bed at night waiting for the engines to cut out and praying it wouldn’t be us they hit. With V2’s you just got the crash as they landed so you didn’t have time to be scared.

In the meantime my dad had married again and his wife didn’t want me, so at 14 years of age I came to Lancashire to live with my mother, as my step father was now manager of a dairy there. I married and stayed on, but in my heart, always a Southener!!!!

Sheila Townson
71 Hayhurst Street
Clitheroe

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