At the beginning of the second world war I was nine years old, the second
eldest of our family. Living in Gorleston near Great Yarmouth on the east coast of
Norfolk with my sister Jean and brothers Reg and Tony and attending Stradbrooke
Junior school at Gorleston. My elder brother Fred was already in the navy having
joined at the age of 16, he went on to serve on the same ship as the Duke of Edinburgh.
Soon after war was declared we were all issued with gas masks which we had to go and be
fitted with. They fitted into a brown cardboard box which had string slotted through it
and we had to carry them everywhere we went. Babies like Tony were fitted with Mickey
Mouse ones which fitted over the pram.
Families were also issued with Anderson shelters which were dug into the garden and the
roofs covered with sandbags and soil. They were made from corrugated iron and although
they were very cold you made them as comfortable as possible with a supply of candles
and blankets to keep warm. Some people who did not have a garden or were unable to get
into a garden shelter because of age or disability were issued with indoor shelters
which were a bit like big cages put on the floor. They were made of steel and had to
be crawled into, they were Morrison shelters. As soon as the air raid siren sounded,
we all had to put on our gas masks and get into the shelters as quick as possible and
stay till the all clear went. It was nearly always at night and we children thought
it was great fun. But then of course we had no idea then what it was really all about
but not so our poor elders who had probably experienced some of the horrors of world
war one. Some places had big communal air raid shelters. Later on when we were evacuated
I never saw another shelter.
We learned to distinguish between the sounds of our own aircraft and the Germans. The
German ones had a distinctive drone and as soon as daylight began to fade and we had
to have a light on, a black out curtain was put over the windows so that no chink of
light could be seen from outside. There were no streetlights for obvious reasons and
air raid wardens patrolled the streets making sure no lights were showing.
After the Germans began bombing Great Yarmouth it was decided that all school children
and even younger ones were to be evacuated inland where it was considered to be safer.
It was the same up and down the country. I remember some Yarmouth children were
evacuated to Scotland but we were sent to Nottinghamshire.
One morning we were all put onto a bus along with other children from our area, we
each had our gas mask boxes and our names pinned to our chests, we carried spare
clothes in a brown paper parcel. A teacher and our Head Master went with us. I think
we were told that we were going away for a short while, and I remember we were all
waving goodbye to our parents not realising that it would be quite a while before we
saw them again. Dad, who was in the RAF, was allowed compassionate leave to see us off.
Mum and Dad along with other parents were crying as they waved us goodbye. They were
wondering what they had let their children in for. It was a terrible decision to make,
as it all had to be done very quickly. Being children having a bus ride, not knowing
where we were going and kissing goodbye to tearful parents and out little brother was
rather upsetting and daunting as we wondered where we were all going. I can't remember
which station the bus took us to but I remember the train stopping at Peterborough
where we were given refreshments. We finally arrived at a place called Bircotes which
was to be our home for over a year.
We were then taken into the school for some refreshments. Afterwards we were taken on
a short walk and lined up outside each street as the house holders who had arranged to
have an evacuee came out and picked who they wanted. Gradually the line got smaller,
then a lady chose Jean as she had a daughter about the same age, she was seven, the
lady next door who happened to be her sister in law choose Reggie as she had lost a
little boy who would have been about the same age, four years. We were ten told to
move along to the next street, but I told them that mum had told me that as I was the
oldest I was to make sure that we all kept together and I was to look after them.
There was a discussion amongst the grownups and then the lady who had chosen Reggie
said she would take me as well, so we were lucky that we were able to live next door
to each other.
Bircotes was a nice little place with shops along one side of a long street and an indoor
market. I remember the fish and chip shop where you could always ask if they had any
pieces which were little pieces of batter that were scooped of the hot fat and given
free. They also fried scallops which were sliced potatoes dipped in batter and fried,
I have never found them anywhere else. There was a little cinema where we children
could go to the Saturday matinee.
I think my biggest impression of Bircotes was the coal mine, with the huge slag heaps
which always filled the air with an unmistakeable smell of sulphur. All the men worked
down the mine and we watched them going off to work each day, all dressed alike with
black clothes and lamps on the front of their hats, carrying their sandwiches in metal
tins, their clogs clattering on the cobble stones. When they came home from working
their shift they would be as black as the coal they mined but luckily the houses in
the street all had bathrooms and the living rooms had a range which heated the water,
the pits didn't have showers then.
The nearest town Bawtry was a bus trip on a Saturday night for the miners to get together
and enjoy billiards and darts in the working men's club. Wives and children could go into
another room to enjoy a gossip and a drink. The children enjoyed a bag of crisps and
lemonade, this was a new experience for me, Jean and Reggie, we all looked forward to
those Saturday nights out.
We shared the local school having our own teachers teaching us and when we were old enough
to sit the eleven plus, our exam papers were sent from Yarmouth. We attended the
Methodist Sunday School every Sunday afternoon as we had at home.
One day when we came out of school we found a group of Ghurkhas resting
by the roadside, they seemed pleased to see us and although we couldn't
understand them and they could not understand us they laughed and talked to us.
Mum came to visit us for a few days at Bircotes and was going to bring Tony,
but at the last minute he had caught measles and she could not bring him, we were
disappointed not to see him.
One day our teachers informed us of the sad news that some of the children from
our school at Goreleston who stayed behind because their parents did not want them
to go away, had been killed by tracer bullets as they walked home from school.
German planes, possibly heading home from raids on London would fly low over the
town and fire their guns at people as they walked in the street.
Mum was beginning to find it hard to manage money wise as she had to send money
for our keep and buy what ever clothes we needed as well as to keep herself and
Tony. We had relatives living around Briston in North Norfolk and after finding
a cottage close by she decided to bring us all home again to live there. We had
been evacuated for just over a year. We later learnt that our old house in
Gorleston was bombed along with others.
