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3rd September. 1939

It was Sunday, I was going for a walk with my friends when the air raid siren sounded, we all ran home thinking we would be bombed, but we weren’t it was just to let us know that we were at war.

Within a week I was to be evacuated to the country. I, like many others thought this would be like a holiday, a big adventure. I was eight years old and had to go with my young brother who was only five. So I didn’t get to see my friends.

We boarded the train at Monkwearmouth station (now the railway museum) complete with gas-mask and haversack containing a change of clothes, toothbrush, soap etc. Some of the bags were bigger than the children that carried them.

We eventually arrived at Driffield in Yorkshire, we assembled in a school, where we were sorted into groups and sent in busses to various villages and to another school. We waited until we were sent to our foster homes, my brother and I were the last to leave because nobody wanted two children. Eventually a home was found, by this time it was dark and we were all very tired.

This home was three miles from school so we had quite a walk, twice a day. There was no public transport. After a few months we were given a new home, nearer to school, about ¾ mile away, which meant we would go home for dinner.

In the village there was no sanitation, toilets were a wooden bench with a hole in and a bucket underneath and spiders all over. I hated it.

There was no electricity, fridges or freezers, radio and television. Lights were all lamps and candles. School was just three classes - Infants, Juniors and Seniors so education was a bit of a joke. Food wasn’t plentiful, but there was many orchards were we supplemented our diet, on many occasions even digging up turnips in the fields and going to the stream to wash them and eating them raw. Blackberries, wild cherries, wild plums etc were all picked to eat (Jamie Oliver had nothing on us).

Yes we missed our own parents and home, but we made friends and often had fun, making our own amusement. Our foster father was a shepherd and we saw lambs being born and often bottle fed the orphan lambs. Not surprisingly I failed my eleven plus exam and I think this decided the end of our exile. After almost Three years we were to come home. That was strange because we had to start all over again — new friends, new school and air raids (not many, but too close for comfort).

By VE day I was a working girl (age 14) and celebrated in Roker Park by dancing in the Band Stand area. We had survived evacuation with many memories, some happy, some sad, but left with a great love of the countryside and the wildlife.

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