An Evacuee

In August 1939, when I was eight years old, my Mother explained to me that I would be going holiday to some friends she knew with a neighbour's dauther - Shirley and she was 10 years old. We would be going for three weeks to see if we all liked each other and then if the war came we would be able to go and stay with them This was at Horsham in Sussex. It was a small cottage in the grounds of a "big house". No bathroom but they did have an indoor toilet and would weekly bath was the tin on in front of the blazing fire in the kithcen/dining room. They had a sculery, kitchen/dining room, toilet downstaris and upstairs were two bedrooms. Shirley and I shared.

We had been there a couple of weeks when war was declared, so that started my stay with an exceedinly good couple and, of course, Shirley. Shirley and I were opposites, she liked getting out and I liked staying in!! However, we got along and we are still in touch, both of us being granmothers now.

When the sirens went as the planes went over Horsham to get to London, we used to go into the larder - this was the biggest larder you have ever seen with the sheles all around holding my foster mother's bottling - no freezers in those days. We called them Aunty and Uncle and they had a spaniel called Bob. We saw the reflection from the fires of London on many nights when the bad bombing was taking place.

Our school was not far away and we joined the local children. I remember being an angel in the Christmas play, but on going back home the morning after rehearsals I fell over on a gravel path. The noise ! I am sure my Mum could have herd me in London but as a good trouper I went on with the biggest bandage they could find on my knee! We did go to London for that first Christmas and when we got back the shool had been burnt down and so we were shunted back and forth to different schools for a while. One was three miles away and we had to walk both ways every day - my chilblains were terrible - then we wre allocated places just round the corner to our home so began and education where the 8 year olds were put with the 10 and 12 year olds and you worked by yourself with "the book". My arithmetic was very good, my English - awful and even going to a good secondary school never made up for my lack of grammar, spelling etc. My long time companion was, and is, a dictionary.

As far as I can remember Uncle looked after the Big House and the grunds, he had been in the first world war, and Aunty helped up there as well. We loved to go round the grounds and see everything - even though it was off limits - they had a playroom over the green house so that was kept warm in the winter when they could get the fuel. They had a beautiful kitchn garden, beds of vegetables, fruit trees, various nut trees and also tennis courts.

My three years there were an education in itself and I kept in touch with them - they came to my wedding, I took the children to see them Unfortunately, as with most places after the war the big house (Chestnust Lodge) was sold and spanish type villas were built, the same happened with all our playing spaces. Shirley and I used to pick primroses, violets and wild daffodils (in their season) and send them home to our Mums. Mine told me many years later that they all rrived in a sorry state - dead! Still it is the thought that counts.

Aunty and Uncle moved a few times and lived in a prefabricated house for many years and died just a few years ago.

Now, looking back on those days, we were extremely lucky to be so sheltered from the horrors of war and very grateful to those people who took us in.

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