Evacuated

The news on arrival wasn't at all good. It seemed we were to be separated and billeted to different families. My eldest brother and me with one family, and Tom with another. Not a good start at all.

We walked quite a way to a farm, through a gate and down a path to a cottage. Very different to the house we came from back in London! There were no other houses in sight, except the farmer's place. Ernie and I were to share the attic, just two single beds one each side of the opening - there was no door. We had to bend to get into bed owing to the slope of the roof.

Nothing much happened that I recall on that first day, just settling in and being told the rules. I was feeling sad so far from home, isolated and no love here.

The toilet was a shed a little way along the path - erk - something different and not at all what we were used to. I didn't like the dark when I was young, so I had some scary moments on my sojourns to the hole in the ground.

The next day we had to walk to the school in the village to be checked out and given our places to sit. There was only one room, divided by a blackboard that could be pulled down from the ceiling. One class one side and the rest on the other. We found this amusing as our school back in London was huge compared to this.



I can't remember much about the rest of the day. I think we were allowed to play in the small playground they had made. I'm sure we enjoyed that. Then back to our little cottage for tea.

At least they fed us well. Most of the stuff came from the farm so it wasn't so hard to get as it was back in the cities. That night we had tea, read our books and talked but the only light was by an old kerosene lamp. I liked eating cheese with home made bread and the smell of the lamp. I wonder why I remember that? One of the good things, I guess.