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A CHILD’S REMINISCENCES OF THE WAR 1939 - 46
I also remember about this time our class had a spelling test. We each stood on our chairs and when we
couldn’t spell a word we sat down. On and on it went until only one boy and I were standing. I was given
the word ‘beautiful’ to spell and I mixed up the vowels so had to sit down. The boy didn’t spell it
correctly either so it was called a draw and we both got a sweet.
I loved all my school days even though in one school we had a cruel sadistic headmaster - but more of that
later.

Now we were at war and I clearly remember the day of Evacuation when we arrived at school and had our names written on luggage labels and pinned on us. We looked like little parcels!

Mam and Dad tried to keep their spirits up so as not to upset us but we were going on a great ‘adventure’ and there were no thoughts of sadness with us. I remember feeling greatly excited and, selfishly, never noticed how different it was for our parents.

And so my little brother and I marched with our gas masks and bags of regulation clothing
with hundreds of other children through streets lined with sobbing parents and other relatives.
I can’t remember any of the children crying but I suppose there must have been a few.
All our thoughts were of the wonderful countryside we would be living in with fields and flowers and animals.

Our teachers had been telling us of the joys of the countryside for days beforehand and it sounded wonderful to us, we couldn’t wait to get there.
So we arrived at the Station where the steam train was already waiting, hissing and puffing, bellowing steam as if to enfold us in it’s protecting haze.

It was a tiring journey as we took first one train and then another until finally we climbed on to a coach for the last part of the journey into the mountains of the Lake District.

We were given a brown paper bag on the coach in which there was a bar of chocolate, a very dark,
bitter chocolate which I didn’t like so I passed it on. I can’t remember what else was in the bag apart from sandwiches and this chocolate.

Eventually the coach stopped outside a blacked-out Hall and we were herded in.
There was a lot of commotion as people came and chose a child and then left.
I remember one woman after another coming to me, reading my luggage tag then, on being told,
"They must be together" shaking their heads and saying "Oh! I can't take two, not a boy and
girl" and walking away. It was the same for Irene, both our parents had said we must not be
separated, so we stood and stood seeing one after another of our friends leaving. As more
and more left, the Hall seemed to grow until when only Irene, her brother and sister, and me
and Billy remained, it seemed a vast echoing place. One or two women were left looking at us
and then someone took Irene's six year old brother. Irene looked at me and I can still see
her quivering lip as her brother was taken. Words were unnecessary, our eyes said it all She
felt as if she had let her parents down after promising them they would not be parted.. I
held on even more tightly to Billy. He wasn't going to be separated from me, I would go back
home rather than let that happen. Then Irene and her sister left and there was now only
Billy and me left. Someone termed this "The Slave Market" and it did feel rather like that
as we were passed over time and time again. People could take one child or two of the same
sex, but not many could take a boy and a girl. We didn't understand this, of course, we only
knew no-one wanted us. I felt worthless, humiliated and somehow odd.

I recall looking out of the window saying fiercely to myself 'I don't care if no-one wants
me, I don't care.' I had never felt so unwanted in all my life and I think it was then that the excitement of the 'great adventure' left me, and reality set in, but I suppose even our experience was preferable to being taken around a town or village with the Billetting
Officer knocking on doors asking 'Would you like to take this one?' as happened to some
children. The Hall was now silent apart from the whispering of our teachers.
At last a woman came in, tapped me on the shoulder as I still stood with my back to the Hall and said "Follow me". Relief was on the faces of the teachers, but by then we were numb. We left the Hall and walked into the, by now, dark night. An unknown woman, an unknown village
shrouded in darkness, I felt rather sick and scared but, as Mam had said, I had to be brave
for the sake of my little six year old brother and so we walked on. 'Call us Mam and Dad' she said when we reached their house. I remember it was a strange house. It was one of two houses built either side of a cobbled archway and the house we were to live in had a greenhouse at the back. I remember 'Dad' cultivated Chrysanthemums in this greenhouse and I often stood in there watching him. He was very proud of his flowers and protected them carefully for the village flower show. Chrysanthemums often remind me of those days as I was happy in his greenhouse. I remember he was a sign painter on the roads and Billy and I often walked to where he was working and watched as he lay the template on the road and then dipped his brush into the pot of white paint and then painted the white line. I believe they have machines to do this now, but in those days they were all painted by hand.

That first night we were given a lighted candle, told to go upstairs, get into bed and blow it out immediately. We were told not to waste it as 'There's a war on you know' - a phrase
repeated throughout the country innumerable times a day. 'Eat all your dinner, there's a war
on you know' 'We haven't got any sausages, there's a war on you know' 'This will have to last another year, there's a war on you know' and so it went on. Every shortage brought on this phrase.