Memories (Part 1)

I promised earlier to publish the few articles under the heading “Memories” I am publishing them in as close to chronological order as I can.

Here is the first one, from Barbara.

In 1940 the decision had to be made to evacuate schools from the East Coast of England to what was considered ‘Safe Areas’ on the other side of the country. I was 13 years old, attending Harwich County High School and living at Upper Dovercourt, Newly.We all assembled at Dovercourt Station one Sunday morning in full school uniform carrying one small suitcase plus of course the obligatory ‘Gas Mask’ which we had to carry at all times. The long train arrived and, after saying goodbye to our parents we all piled in. At this stage we had no idea where we were going and eventually the train steamed out on a long journey, specially routed across country with no changes or having to go through London main line stations.

Eventually we arrived at a station which appeared to be in the middle of a huge factory complex, the like of which I, nor my companions, had never seen before. We were to learn that we were in Gloucestershire at a town called Dursley, which I had never heard of. We then walked, in crocodile file, to a big building and hall which we soon discovered was the Town Hall where we were given sandwiches and a drink before we each had a very cursory medical which included the indignity of having our hair examined for the dreaded ‘nits’!

Gradually groups of children were taken away to their foster home; a group of 4 or 5 had been requested so my friends and I went forward thinking we would all be together in one billet. However it turned out we were all to go to a new housing estate just outside a town called Woodfield where we each went to a different home. There I was welcomed by Mr and Mrs Morris, a middle aged childless couple, and shown into a rather bare bedroom containing a bed and small chest of drawers.

I later went into the garden, which converged at the bottom with others, to meet my friends and see how they were getting on and comparing notes.

We soon returned indoors, as by now it was bedtime, and to my surprise, my bedroom had been completely changed; more furniture had been moved in and it was, after all, a very nice bedroom. I discovered afterwards that the people of Woodfield had been told that we were from a Port area and expected children from the ‘slums’; at that time stories were circulating about ‘dirty children’ arriving, they had no idea what age we would be either, so consequently they had cleared the room of ‘good’ furniture and had also put a rubber sheet on the mattress! Of course when they saw me on the doorstep with my smart school uniform and realised I was 13 years old and from a good home they were horrified. I had been sent into the garden so they could take the rubber sheet away, bring the furniture back and make the room more welcoming.

We were not integrated into the local schools as many of our teachers had come with us, but some of the classrooms had been made available for our use as well as the local Church halls. At the end of July the long summer holiday started and I remember it was a beautiful hot, sunny time. My friends and I were living at the foot of an immense tree clad hill, Stinchcombe Hill, which extended over many miles; it had a plateau on the top with a large golf course on which, it was rumoured, many famous people had played including high ranking German Officers.

Many happy hours were spent exploring the beech woods and finding different routes to the top where we had to watch out for the golf balls! The locals would give us bags of plums. It must have been a good year for fruit and we picked blackberries. We did, however, avoid the fir tree plantation which was rather too dark and sinister to walk in.This was the only school holiday I spent at Woodfield as, during the remainder of my two years there I returned to Clacton where my parents were for the school holiday.

At the age of 15 I returned to Clacton for good although the school there was still evacuated. Colchester Girls County High School had remained open throughout this time and I was able to transfer to there, travelling daily by train.