91热爆

DISCLAIMER:
This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Phil Sealey of the Somerset County Museum Team on behalf of Mrs Joan Levell and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

鈥淎fter attending school [Barking Abbey Grammar] with a kit bag packed with the clothes we were told to bring for evacuation, for about 5 days in a row, we were at last told that we would be sent away from London as it would not be safe to stay and there would be no school open for us. We were marched in a crocodile with our gas masks slung round our necks and a label on our coats giving our names and the name of our school to the nearest railway station and we travelled to Paddington station in London to start our journey. Nobody had any idea where we were going and we ate our sandwiches packed by our mothers that morning, and tried to keep quiet and well behaved. Our teachers went from carriage to carriage talking to us and answering questions.
It was about 8pm at night when we arrived at Locking Rd station in Weston-super-mare and were again marched to a local school where we sat around in a circle and people came in who had volunteered to take in an evacuee, or two. We were tired, hungry and rather lost and I remember I was one of the last of the children to be picked out and taken away. The better looking and the better clothed certainly went first.
Back with Mrs. Cooper, a widow, who lived at an end of terrace house called 鈥淪ri Lanka鈥� I was shown my place to sleep that night, on a camp bed in a corner of a room with three other girls and given some milk and biscuits. On the 3rd of September I remember hearing the announcement of the declaration of war on Germany on the wireless, and all the grown ups were very worried and solemn.
From then on we lived there and were taken by bus to our new school - which was at the other end of the town, Uphill, and we shared it with the local grammar school. They went in the morning until lunch time and we followed on in the afternoon until 5 30 pm. The rest of the day we were left to our own devices. It didn鈥檛 take much effort to realise that in fact, they had taken the grammar school children to the wrong end of the town and in fact, we all had to be re-billeted over the next month.
The money given to keep us for a week was about l0s.6d [55p], which was not much, and barely covered our food let along our washing and general care.
Another place, another volunteer to take us in, and another house to get used to. I was very lucky in that an elderly couple that lived in an enormous house in Brean Down Road took me, and I had an absolutely fabulous bedroom with a washbasin, in those days that was very, very, unusual. It also had a double bed, the house had a cat called Mickey and the granddaughter who was also staying there was my age - and also called Joan. We had to call the lady Grandma, both of us, and we had our jobs to do. I loved mine, as I had to make the toast every morning
An electric toaster in 1939 was indeed a prize, and had to be watched to see when the toast was ready, and then the little door was pulled down and the toast taken out. Great. I enjoyed living there, and have never been in such a large and beautiful house since. The staircase curved round like a film set, and the hall was big enough to have a dinner party in it.
I moved from there just before Christmas 1939 and went to a far different place, not far away, but vastly different in both surroundings and people.鈥�

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