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The night before war was declared we were staying in Butlins Hotel in Felixstowe. I was aged 12 years old. We left the West Thurrock School by bus and went to Tilbury to catch the ship ‘The Eagle’ to go to Felixstowe. Next we went to Suffolk by coaches. We were eating our lunches of apply tarts and then were told to leave them and get on the coach to Witnesham. I enjoyed the countryside and the people we stayed with.

In the village was a church hall with West Thurrock and East London children. We all had our lessons in the church hall — we were split into two classes.
At Christmas having carols the teacher wanted three kings. I put my head down as I was very shy. Twice he called me but I didn’t look up. The third time I looked up and had to go to the front.

After Christmas we were mixed in with the rest of the village children. There was only 4 classes in the school (age 5-14). They put me in the second group from the top. After the first week I was moved to the top of the top group.

The family I lived with lived next to the chapel. They were a very good Christian family and the man was superintendent of the chapel. The service was familiar to West Thurrock. They had a lovely garden and orchard. We picked apples and fed the pigs. They thought they were fortunate they had us and we thought we were fortunate to have them.
At the school they showed us how to prune a rose bush and we had a game of hockey at the end of the season. We was to have tennis lessons when we had to leave.

We had good school dinners and lovely treacle tart. We had cookery lessons. The evacuees had to have something out of the cupboard for lunch. I had porridge but when we opened the tin it was full of maggots.

That winter the snow was so high it was taller than me and they had to clear the snow. It was a lovely experience but we weren’t allowed to skate on the ponds.

My brother was stationed in Woodbridge and he would meet us at Ipswich for egg and chips in a café. On our way back to the bus station I asked someone to move but they didn’t reply — it was a lamppost but it was so dark that I couldn’t tell!

The family made sure we wrote home every week and my sister told me not to say goodbye on the first page. It gave me a good experience of country life which was a contrast to the cement dust of Thurrock.

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