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PREFACE

Enfield Middlesex
August 1998

This little booklet of “Evacuees Memories” has never formally been published. Initially it came into being following a letter in one of the local ‘free’ papers distributed in Enfield North London, requesting anyone who has been evacuated during Word War Two to contact The Imperial War Museum Research Department, they were looking for momentos that any Evacuees still had for the “EVACUEES EXHIBITION” they planned for 1996. I only had memories.
My initial notes almost filled five A4 pages when typed in the final form and given to The Imperial War Museum for their archives. At that time I also had a few copies made for the family and for friends who were interested.

Interest however was greater than l believed possible, thus this smaller version came into being. The original text remains unaltered.

O. M. Short (Mrs)1998

Sadly Olive passed away on 7th November 2000
due to complication with the illness myasthenia gravis.
She will be sadly missed by all who knew her.

Having been born early in 1931 I was 8½ when the Second World War was declared in September 1939. Blessed with a fairly good memory I can recall quite clearly a number of things leading up to that time. In the months following the crisis of 1938 preparations `in case another war broke out"continued in various parts of London, including Tottenham where I was born and brought up. I can remember asking my father why the men were digging long and to me, deep holes in strange places, only to be told that they were trenches for people to hide in if there was a war. I don't remember whether the school holidays were cut short by a few days in the summer of 1939 or if we were meant to return on the Wednesday when we were given details of evacuation. I know my father had joined the Civil Defence as an Air Raid Warden some time late 1938 and had been in charge of distributing gas masks to everyone living locally,at Seven Sisters School which I attended, while in line to be fitted with mine I proudly told everyone near me that it was my Dad up there giving the masks out.

During the last few days of August 1939 here had been some very heated discussions in the family as to whether I would be evacuated or not. My father wasn’t very keen for me to go, perhaps it was because I was an only child, I don't know, but when my mothers eldest sister, who had brought her up, came on the Wednesday evening and announced she had arranged for me to stay with relations in Bristol my father put his foot down and said if I was going to leave London, it would be with the school. Frantic sorting out and marking my clothes with my name, or rather tapes were sewn into everything and stamped "J Oliphant" in Indian Ink, my Fathers signature for quickness. It was on the clothes I was to wear for the journey and on the complete change that was put into the rucksack I was to carry along with the two blankets we were also instructed to take. I also chose to take a small doll with me.

Following the instructions we had all been given a couple of days earlier those children who were to be evacuated assembled in the Infant School playground of Seven Sisters School and waited to hear what was to happen next. Forming up into the usual school crocodile after a quick "goodbye" to our mothers we were led off through a couple of roads to the nearby Seven Sisters Road, waiting there for us were a line of trolley buses to take us on the first part of our journey. To this day I do know if the round-about way we were taken was to confuse any parent who may have had change of mind or if it was to foil enemy agents that may have been around. Having settled everyone, including some teachers onto the trolley buses the convoy moved off along Seven Sisters Road towards Manor House, but we all had to disembark at the stop before reaching there. It was as we were lining up again that a "big boy" knocked my doll from my arms and broke her head, my protest to the Junior School boys Head Master, a Mr Ring, were brushed aside and I had to brush away my tears and join the line. We were then taken on foot to Manor House Station where we caught a tube train to Enfield West (now Oakwood) station. Getting off the train with my rucksack still on my back I started to struggle under its weight, especially when going up the steps to the station exit. It was then that I saw a man in uniform making his way down the steps to help anyone in difficulty, he took the weight of my rucksack off me as we made our way to the top. It was several years, just before the end of the war in fact, that I realised that the uniform he wore was that of St John Ambulance. At the station entrance there was a line of good old London red double decker buses which, in what appeared no time at all, were filled, with children and teachers and moving off. Our destination this time being Barnet, possibly New Barnet as that station is on an incline. Here we were given something to drink and sandwiches to eat on the train. This was to be the last part of our journey to Baldock in Hertfordshire. As I learnt in the months to come, not all that far from home though it took far longer that day than it has at any time since.

Soon everyone was off the train and ushered out of the station into the familiar crocodile again. Led by strangers this time we were all taken into a disused cinema and given another drink and something more to eat before being taken along what I later came to know as White Horse Street and Sun Street into a very large field. Here we were divided into groups according to which part of the town we were going to be billeted. My group was one of the smaller ones as we were to be billeted in the few roads at the most southerly edge of Baldock. We were taken along a fairly busy road with fields on one side and houses on the other, stopping now and again to leave a girl here, a boy there as we went. We had, as I now realise, been lined up according to a set plan as the children were always taken from the front of the line so there were only girls left at the final stop for me. Carefully counting twelve girls from the front, myself being one of the last pair, we then went along a lane and after about 100 yards tuned into a gateway. A small bungalow with a pretty garden was by the gate, but we were taken along a drive with a. tall hedge on one side and a field on the other to a large square house standing entirely on its own and three stories high, St Josephs Convent, which was to be my home for the next 4 years. No choice of religion had been taken into account when we were picked out, Congregationalist, C of E, Baptist and a Jew, not a Roman Catholic amongst us. In fact I don't think there was one of us who even knew what a nun was, let alone seen one before. Having been made welcome by one of the nuns we were led by another up what to me was an endless staircase to the dormitory where we were each allocated a bed and introduced to an elder girl who would a big sister until we had settled in. My "Big sister" was from southern Ireland and her name was Breeda.

After a quick wash to freshen us after our journey we were taken down- stairs again into the refectory for a hot meal, then it was time for bed though 6 O'clock was early we were all very tired. While we had been eating our supper one of our teachers had come along to see that we were settling in and came upstairs with us. There were other girls at the Convent about the same age as most of newcomers, at 81/2 I was almost the youngest, there being one of the twelve just a few days short of her 8th birthday, but she did have her ten year old sister with her. Not being used to older or even younger brothers or sisters it did not worry me that there was no-one in the group that I knew, although they had all attended the same school as myself they were all that much older.

After breakfast on our second day it was suggested by the Mother Superior, who we all came to call Ma Mare, it being a French order, that one of the "holiday girls" took us all out for a walk to show us around. I must explain about the "holiday girls", they too came from London but as their parents were in business it was normal for them to spend the long summer holidays at the convent It was on the walk to the park we learnt more about our foster home and its occupants though some of the information took longer to assess. Firstly the nuns were either French or southern Irish, Sister Christine being the only one who could not speak English, she was the cook. On the two floors above which was our domain, were bed sits for retired or widowed ladies, their dining room and the convent chapel and the top floor as already mentioned the dormitory, plus a room half that length for the Sisters a small room which was Ma Mare's, a room for the clean laundry, an even smaller room used to nurse any of the sisters who fell ill and the wash room or lavabo for use of the girls. We also learnt that the older girls, our 'big sisters" were at the convent as pre noviciates. By this time we had reached the park at Norton a little village about a mile away, I think it must have been that the fresh air had made us all hungry rather than because we knew the time that we started home as I am fairly certain nobody had a watch. We were suddenly shouted at by a lady from one of the houses opposite to get back home straight away, war had been declared and there might be an air-raid. So with the haste a group of children usually make, we just quietly walked back to the convent at the same pace as our outward journey.

Over the next few days we settled in, at least most of us did, two of our group only stayed a couple of days before returning to London with yet another staying for about a month. School was the next step of our stay. To start with we shared with the local children, part time, them in the morning including Saturday one week, with the evacuees afternoon Monday to Friday, reversing the procedure the following week. There were actually more evacuees than local children, so the girls were all crammed into one classroom and the boys into the other. It was distracting enough with three teachers teaching three age levels in one room without anything else, but the other distraction was far more fun. In the summer of 1939 there must have been a plague of butterflies, or at least enough adult butterflies to cause a plague of caterpillars. They were everywhere in the classrooms, mainly on the ceiling and every now and again one dropped onto a desk. Then if the occupant was frightened of creepy crawlies they would quickly brush it off, if not it was left to crawl where it wanted, From time to time one would fall into an inkwell only to be speared out with the pen either on purpose or accidentally, whichever it was the poor thing was soon zooming across the room at some unsuspecting occupant of another desk.
A few weeks later we were all told by our teachers that there was to be a special film made for the newsreel about how evacuees were settling down. Not everyone was going to be in this film but I can remember clearly being picked out by the Head Mistress and along with about twenty or so others putting on my coat and being taken to where the new local cinema was. We were to be filmed as though we were waiting to go into the cinema, playing with a ball while doing so. After a lot of sorting out and practising "dropping the ball" the filming went ahead. At the crucial point when the ball was dropped instead of it bouncing back and being caught, it rolled and without thinking I ran and picked it up. This was kept in the film as some months later on a proper visit to the cinema it was shown. It was part of either Gaumont British or Pathe News.

Not being very far from London it was arranged for coaches to be laid on so that our parents could visit us. My mother used to come about every 2-3 weeks bringing either my aunt and uncle or her niece, my only female cousin with her. By this time my father was working full time with the Civil Defence, not being called up as his, was a reserved occupation being in the building trade having had his own small business before the war. He, from time to time when his shift allowed, did visit but always came on his bicycle having always been a keen cyclist. As time went on with more and more evacuees returning to London the coaches were less frequently available until eventually parents wishing to visit had to come by train. Quite a straightforward journey really, not round-about like the one that had taken me to Baldock, a couple of hours on a good day if not less.

Disaster of sorts struck me early in November, I caught Scarlet Fever and spent the next 6 weeks in Letchworth Isolation Hospital, no visitors at all allowed. However 2 days before Christmas I was allowed "home" to the convent, to be greeted by all my new found friends. Although none of us had any toys we weren't really bothered, we made our own fun. Being so near to Christmas a pantomime was being rehearsed, no script, I don't think any of us even knew what a script was anyway, the others all had parts worked out for them and as they had not been told I would be back in time for the show no part was available for me, until one of the girls had an idea I would be a herald. With the show to go on that evening the next problem was costume, it was quickly decided that my royal blue jumper, navy school knickers, black stockings and plimsolls would be ideal. So before an audience of the nuns, the ladies from upstairs and the "big girls" the story of Cinderella was acted out with a herald announcing every scene and the downstairs lavabo as the changing room. This was the start of regular performances of concerts and made-up plays put on at Christmas or the feastday of each of the nuns. We always looked forward to feastdays as there was always a special meal laid on to celebrate.

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