91�ȱ�

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Maggie Smith a volunteer from CSV Action Desk on behalf of Joan Florence Vickers (nee Pitt) and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Vickers fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

My two years at Pipewood are still memorable. I was evacuated to Pipewood when I was 12, I was there for two years. I didn’t want to leave when I was 14 but I had to go to work.

I cried for the first two weeks when I went there, but I was one of several who did cry at first.

My home was a council house in Acocks Green, Birmingham.

I loved the games and lessons at Pipewood and became a great “shooter” for netball. Growing vegetables and seeing the animals was exciting. All the teachers were kind to me.

There was a dance once a month when the local farm boys would attend, music by 78 rpm records. On Sundays we walked 3 miles to Rugeley R.C. Church and then 3 miles back.

The food seemed varied and plentiful. When my mother visited she left pocket money for me with the headmistress and I was paid two shillings a week.

We had a tuck-shop in Pipewood. Whilst there I had tonsillitis and was kept in the infirmary.

Both my older brothers were in the R.A.F. My father was a lorry driver, my mother was a housewife.

I don’t remember any aircraft in the air at Pipewood.

Wartime at home in Birmingham was exciting at times apart from the water level in the Anderson Shelter. I did miss my school friends but made new ones and we still keep in contact.

When I left at 14 I went to work in the office at Parkinson’s a stove company in Stechford, Birmingham.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.