��ѿ��ý

In 1939, I was a six-year-old girl, living with my parents and 18-year-old brother in a working-class district of Salford, Lancashire. My parents ran a public house, the Gardeners’ Arms, and my brother was a mechanic with the National Cash Register Company.
When war was declared, I had just returned from spending part of the summer school holidays with “Uncle” Jim and “Auntie” Marjorie, old friends of my parents who lived in the Peak District at Hayfield in Derbyshire. Fearing that I might be sent to live with strangers as an official evacuee, my parents decided to send me straight back to Hayfield.
Hayfield’s official evacuees came from Sheffield and, for a time, they were required to share the Council school building with the village children on a half-time basis, alternating morning and afternoon attendance, week and week about. As an unofficial evacuee, I went to school with the village children. If the weather was fine, the teachers took us for country walks, when we were unable to attend school. Eventually, the Sheffield evacuees and their teachers were accommodated in the old C of E school in the centre of the village and full-time education recommenced. My main memory of school at that time was learning how to knit. I soon mastered the mysteries of plain and purl but I had great difficulty in working out at the start of a knitting lesson whether I needed to start with a knit or a purl row to keep my stocking stitch correct and knitting lessons became a dreadful trial for me. Happily, “Auntie” Marjorie’s elderly mother, Mrs Hadfield, took me in hand. Some blue knitting wool was produced and, between us, we knitted a new suit for my small toy bear, Bonzo.
Petrol was still available for private motorists and my parents were able to come and see me from time to time. As Christmas 1939 approached, they collected me from Hayfield and took me to a large department store in Manchester to tell Father Christmas what I would like for Christmas and I asked for a toy panda. My mother had great difficulty in getting the information out of me as I told her that “Father Christmas already knew”. I woke on Christmas morning to the biggest toy panda I had ever seen.
In the spring of 1940, my parents took the decision to bring me back to Salford. On my final day at the village school, I stood on one of the desks and sang “Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye”.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.