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This story was submitted to the peoples war site by Michelle Bradshaw of Hugh Baird college on behalf of Margaret Thorton and has been added to the site with her permission

I remember just before the war I changed schools from infants to seniors, I remember getting up to go to school and my mum never told me to go back to my old school because I was going some where. She told me to take a pillowcase, which had enamel cup, plate, saucer, knife and fork, and a label to pin on my coat.

I didn’t know where I was going as I was only 11, my brother was 10, my sister was 9 and my youngest brother was 5. The next thing I knew I was standing in lime street station and was put on a train to Shropshire. We were put in a school when we arrived and we were all lined up “like cattle”. The villagers came in and picked who the y wanted. My sister and me stayed together of the war, when I was 13 I had to go to work, the government wouldn’t keep us. I went into service and was only 13 and half years old. The only time I came home was after the war ended when I was 16. the evacuation was brilliant as the people I stayed with were wonderful,. The time i was there I wouldn’t of changed it for the world. My sister went home after 6 weeks and my brothers stayed through the war as well. I never regret the evacuation as I enjoyed it and when I came home I had another 6 brothers and sisters. The second year of the war was a terrible winter and the snow was 6 feet deep and only the evacuees had to go to school. We weren’t allowed to take our exams, as the government wouldn’t pay foe us.

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