The Memories of a Child Evacuee from Folkestone to Merthyr Tydfil, 1940 – part 2

by Peter Campbell

THE EVACUATION

I am not quite sure of the date. It must have been around May 1940.

I was six years old. I lived in a lovely seaside town on the south coast of England called Folkestone in Kent with my Mum and Dad and 3 sisters and my 5 brothers. I was very proud of my eldest brother Harry he was in the RAF.

I went to a Catholic school called ‘Stella Maris’ with my sisters Pat and Ivy and two brothers Gordon and Terry they were all older than me. My teacher was called Sister St Teresa and our Head was Sister St John.

One day we were all at school assembly as every morning, I never used to listen to very much; I would be looking out of the window up at the sky to see if I could see any fighter planes. Our Head Mistress was telling us that because of the war and the risk of bombing, the government said it would be necessary for all the school children to be sent to a part of the country that would be safe from any bombs. We would be going to a town in South Wales called Merthyr Tydfil, we had no idea where Wales was or how far away, my sister said it was over 200 miles. I thought it would be very nice to go away on holiday it sounded like fun, but what I did not realise was that my Mum and Dad and my little brothers, too young to be at school, would not be coming with us and we would have to stay there until the war was over.

I couldn′t wait to get home a tell my Mum and Dad but they already knew and were very sad, they did not want us to go to a strange place on our own, but we knew our teachers were coming with us, so it would not be too bad and the whole school would be together.

During the next week we were all busy getting our things together we would not be able to take any toys just things like change of clothes, underwear, pyjamas, soap, toothbrush, shoes and such like, but I did manage to stuff my teddy ‘Chuckles’ in.

The school said we would get new things when we got to our new homes. Then the day came for us to leave home – we all met at school about 100 children. Our teachers called the register to make sure we were all present then tied labels on our coat collars, which had not to be taken off because it had our Name, Address, School and Age also where we were going to.

We all had to carry our gas masks which we had been doing for a long time, our little parcels of clothes, and we were taken to the railway station where there was a very long train waiting. We said goodbye to our Mums and Dads everybody was crying but we all tried to be brave and hoped we would all be together again soon. As the train left the station everybody was still waving, There were over 800 children on the train from all schools in Folkestone and Dover, we sat down and cried but our teachers said come on let′s all sing and we did.

It was about 10 in the morning and a very hot sunny day we were told that we would be stopping at stations on the way to get refreshments, and would reach Merthyr Tydfil by 2 in the afternoon. It was a terrible journey the sun was too hot through the windows of the train and there were air raids. The train had to stop just in case the German planes bombed the rails or the train. My brown paper parcel got very hot in the sun which gave of a funny smell I was very sick we did not reach Merthyr Tydfil until 5.30pm.

There were no buses to meet us so we were told we would have to walk to a mission hall, which was at the top of this steep hill. We set off to walk in twos hand in hand, People were lining the street right to the top, waving flags and cheering. I think they were trying to make us welcome, some were crying especially the women I suppose they felt sorry for us. Half way up the hill the string on my parcel came off and I dropped everything all over the street. Some kind ladies ran forward and picked them all up, wrapped them up again and carried it up to the mission hall.

To be continued…….

Many thanks to Les Haigh for giving me permission to reproduce this article. To see the original please visit:-

http://www.leshaigh.co.uk/folkestone/evacuee.html