As May 8 approaches and we celebrate Victory in Europe Day (VE Day), I think back to what I remember most. I was an evacuee – a child sent away from London to the country to be safe from the Nazi air raids. My brother Don was aged eight years and nine months and I was five years and six months old when war was declared in September 1939. We left our home and parents not really knowing what was going on nor where we were going. We were put on a train and ended up in Frinton and went to live with two spinsters called Christmas. I seem to recall that the stay was ok but the winter was fierce and sea froze over. It seemed that all the wartime winters were to be very cold!
After a time we had to leave Frinton as it was thought too dangerous – it was in the flight path of Nazi bombers. So we went on another longer train journey to Cardiff and the village of Marshfield where we stayed for several months with the nice Walker family. Mr J. C. Walker was the News of the World Cartoonist. But, again, were moved on because it was dangerously near a large ammunition dump.
This time we were going to stay with the Peppercorn family in Ramsey Mereside, Lincolnshire. The house is sill standing!! It wasn’t very nice there and we were always hungry and lived off rabbits shot by their deserter son. Mum and dad were not happy with this family and asked our Aunt Doris and Uncle Charlie if they would take us in. So, we moved, again, to Maltby in the West Riding of Yorkshire where we stayed until I went back to London on my own (Don wasn’t very well). I arrived just in time for the last of the buzz bombs or “Doodlebugs” and the V2 rockets!
I had comeback just in time to take the first of the 11+ exams and ended up in the Edmonton Latymer Grammar School. And that was the beginning of another journey!
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