SYD & HARRY 1940 In The Garden Hillside Loke Cromer Road. Roughton. : 無料・フリー素材/写真
SYD & HARRY 1940 In The Garden Hillside Loke Cromer Road. Roughton. / expom2uk
| ライセンス | クリエイティブ・コモンズ 表示 2.1 |
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| 説明 | EVACUEES FROM TILBURY ESSEX 1ST SEPTEMBER 1939By Sydney Oats Mid August 1939 posters appeared on the walls, notices in the news papers, giving instructions to families with children to be prepared if war should break out.We should all go to Lansdowne road school, we had to have a change of clothing and various toiletries and various other items that have now slipped into the dim past.We were very poor, my father was a 1914-18 war pensioner, and with 8 brothers and sisters our items were very meager, but my mother was very resourceful and she made back packs for my younger brother and I out of Hessian sacking, and in the required items she included a bed sheet in my pack.On the 1st of September 1939 senior boy scouts were moving around the streets calling out and knocking on doors, telling us to go to the school at once.My younger brother Harry 10years old and I was 12 put on our back packs, said our goodbyes and walked to the school, it was the start of a great adventure, we were street wise kids and took it all in our stride, we were used to roughing it.At the time I attended the St Chads school so I did not know any of the teachers that were going with us or many of the children, I did notice a very large male teacher talking to one of the well dressed man and an equally well dressed boy, the man gave the teacher $2 pounds and said will you look after him for me, I had never seen $2 pounds before it seemed a lot of money.We left the school in buses and were taken to Tilbury landing stage and boarded a paddle steamer the Royal? I cannot trace it in the archives.The journey seemed like a pleasure cruise the biggest boat I had been on previously was the Tilbury ferry to Gravesend.During the journey children were pointing about 50 yards from our boat was a submarine periscope going in the opposite direction, I was glad that it must have been one of ours.We arrived at Great Yarmouth Norfolk, we went into the harbour and disembarked into buses and were taken to the local school main hall, there was thin army mattresses covering the floor, I cannot remember being fed but I suppose we were.Come evening we were told to lie down and go to sleep, there were no covers so out came mums precious sheet; we were the only ones to have a cover.But in no time there were 6 others with us, but it was not a problem for us we were used to sleeping 4 in a bed for most of our lives.I think the next day we left the school and boarded a train and bus to Roughton 2 miles from Cromer.In the village school we were sorted out in to billets, Harry and I ended up in a very nice modern house on the main rd from Roughton to Cromer and not far from Cromer.We were their about 2 days when we was taken away leaving one boy behind, and Taken to a farm in between Felbrigg and Roughton, we arrived just before lunch, I remember sitting around the table and having a meal and that same afternoon was on our way again this time we was joined by another boy, cannot remember his Christian name his surname was Housego, we were taken to a small cottage in The Loke Roughton not very far from the farm and about 2 miles from the school.The cottage was very small and old it had a narrow spiral staircase to our bedroom where we slept 3 in a bed; we only ever saw 2 rooms in the cottage, the kitchen where we ate, and our bedroom.The toilet was a dry toilet on top of a deep hole, about 20 meters down the garden, there was no water in the house but there was a standpipe across the Loke.The couple that took us in was over 70 years old but in robust health; the lady was very strict and constantly reminded us that she only got 5shillings a week for each of us.We seemed to get bread and paste (no butter) every day for breakfast and we got the same in the lunch 2 slices she packed for us every day for school, she made her own bread and by the end of the week it got pretty dry, I cannot remember what we got for the evening meal, but I can remember we were always hungry.But I remember very well what we got for Sunday lunch rabbit stew, the rabbit was delivered to the door for 2 shillings, us boys use to argue over who got the head.We had to go to church every Sunday or get no dinner, we only missed once and sure enough the message got there before we got home and sure enough we did not get any dinner.The main chore for us was to collect wood for the kitchen fire, no wood no food.We used to collect fallen timber in the woods around us, the hardest part was carrying it home, we then had to saw it to size for the stove and chop up the small stuff for kindling, and we sometimes had to help in the garden, in the vegetable patch as they grew all there own vegetables, the man was very kind.We were relatively country wise, we had been hop picking with our parents all our lives for about six weeks every year, we lived in corrugated huts and us boys had to fetch the water and Faggots [bundles of wood] for the fire where the cooking was done outside the hut.In spite of all this we had a wonderful time; the village pond was just behind our house that was full of frogs and newts.There was a large heath behind the pond where we played and had a great time, in the summer we walked to Cromer.There we saw our first sandy beach and clear water, instead of the dirty Thames and muddy beaches.In winter the deep snow and the pond frozen over, and we could slide on it and people skiing over the hills and us on borrowed toboggansTilbury was very flat and we hardly ever got snow and the Thames was so dirty you could not see your hand 2inches below the surface.School was fairly uneventful except for 2 or 3 times a week you had to dig for Victory, I felt we did not help the victory very much.It was in Roughton that we had the one and only visit from our mother in September 1939, A bus was organized by some of the parents, we were so excited she took our photograph and it is the only photo that we that was taken during our time as evacuees.We had been at Roughton for about a year, when we went to school one morning in June 13-18 1940, we were told that we were all going to be moved, my brother and I was very happy.A couple of days later we were taken by buses, complete with our haversacks minus the sheet, and taken to the Cromer railway station and boarded a train.Many hours later the train was shunted into a lonely siding at Blythe Bridge, then taken by bus to the local school, where my brother and the boy Housego and myself was last to leave the school, where we overheard a conversation where the teachers were trying to convince a lady to take 3 boys who only wanted girls, in the end she took us, which started the best time of our lives as an evacuee.She was a wonderful caring lady, who treated us as her own; she had a daughter about 11 and a teenaged son who did not live at home.We started a wonderful carefree life.The father was a coal miner, a wonderful man who kept roller canaries; he took them to bird shows where they won prizes for singing.He invited me to help him with his birds, I had to clean the cages and keep them supplied with seed and water.There was an aviary one end of the shed holding maybe 20 birds, and their was 16 cages in a cabinet that held the cages in separate compartments, each compartment held a male bird that was chosen to be trained for singing, each compartment had 2 small doors.When I came home from school I closed all the doors, except for one cage in the middle, I then used his secret training device it was a matchbox held closed with electrical tape, the box held 6 tin tacks.Which I had to shake until the bird with the open doors sang, then I opened them all one at a time till all the birds started singing, it was a wonderful time.When it came around to show time, he took me with him and one of his birds won a prize.When harvest time came around, school children could have time off to help with the harvest, we went to a farm south of Blythe Bridge and we did potato gathering which lasted a couple of days.My brother and I enjoyed it so much we asked the farmer if we could help some more, so he said we could help to send a flock of sheep from the farm to the market in Blythe Bridge.This entailed herding 36 sheep from the farm along the main road with no sheep dogs to help us just the farmer a farm hand and us 2 boys the distance was about 3 miles I reckon we ran about 6 miles with chasing the sheep out of people’s gardens.We were exhausted and when we got to the market one was missing, it was found the next day hiding in a farm building. The contrast between the hosts in Roughton and Blythe Bridge was so great.One day whilst still in Roughton we were at Cromer on the beach we used to help fishermen pull their boats up off the beach, this time the fisherman gave us 2 large crabs, when we took them home our host was very pleased with them,Later on when we went into tea the old lady was very irate and called me bad and stupid because one of them was bad.In the Blythe Bridge billet I went to do a shed check on the birds on a Saturday, it must have been a dull day because I had the light on.The host Mr. Collier had called us in he had given us money to go to the cinema matinee, it was a 2 mile walk, and when we got home it was quite dark.I was told that I had left the light on in the shed, and the ARP warden had seen it, I was really worried that I was in very big trouble because I had the keys to the shed in my pocket, our host Mr. C said I was not to get worried I was only a boy and nobody was going to get into trouble because the warden had jumped up and pulled the wires out and he had endangered everybody’s lives as the wires were flashing about on the ground.Mrs. C gave me a big hug because she could see I was on the verge of crying.We were in Blythe Bridge during the bombing of the major cities, we saw squadron after squadron of German bombers, and we stood out in the street watching them with all the other neighbours.Later in the night we could see the glow in the sky of many cities burning, in all directions, we learnt next morning about the bombing of all the cities.We lived on the main road between Stoke and Uttoxeter, the area was all farmland there was no woods or wild places within walking distance of leaving after lunch and getting back for teatime.So comparing all aspects of the billets, it would have been sheer heaven if we had lived with Mr. & Mrs. C in Norfolk, it would have been the happiest time of my whole life.We left Blythe Bridge a couple of days after my 14th birthday 29 January 1941,Not because I wanted to but because I had to go home and start work.When we got home people said we talked funny, it must have been a mixture of Staffordshire and Norfolk accent.The town and dock had been heavily bombed, whole streets and been obliterated and there was rows of empty damaged houses where people had been moved away.My mother had moved but it had only been across the town, and I could still see the docks 100yds from the front of the house.I now live in South Australia with my wife and family.My brother Harry died in the year 2001.This account is copyright to the University of Reading. |
| 撮影日 | 2010-09-29 10:31:25 |
| 撮影者 | expom2uk |
| 撮影地 | Roughton, England, United Kingdom 地図 |