Bradford Evacuee

My grandmother Vera Field was evacuated in 1940 from Bradford to Australia. She was 14 when she left England. The ship left from Liverpool and evacuees were allowed to be waved off by one family member. Her mother took her to the docks, at the time she did not know where she was going.She remembers that a ship carrying evacuees had recently been sunk in the Atlantic and this weighed heavily on all their minds. They set sail for Australia, my Grandma, being one of the elder evacuees spent her time looking after the younger children on board. The ship docked in South Africa and they were allowed to write letters to their families to let them know they were all okay. They were not allowed to write about the journey or to give any details about where they were heading. In July/August 1940 the ship arrived in Australia. My Grandma was sent to Ballarat. The first family she stayed with treated her like a servant. She eventually managed to get moved to another family and had many happy memories of her time there. When she was old enough she joined the Australian Womens Army Service. Many of her memories of this time include reporting sick so that she could sneak out to the pictures!In 1945 my Grandma decided that she wanted to return to her family in Bradford.She travelled back by boat and was in Bermuda on VE day. She arrived back in Bradford to discover that her mother had died in 1942 and that her father had re-married. She did not get on with her step-mother and lived with her Grandmother until she moved to London to marry my Grandfather in 1947.
This may not be an heroic story. However it has always amazed me that a 14 year old girl could leave her family and travel to the other side of the world to start a new life. I don't think there were that many children evacuated in this manner during the war and i believe that my Grandmother deserves her place in history because of this. Unfortunately, she died last year, but I remember many a time that we sat and talked about her time during the war.

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