My Evacuation

I was 9 years old when I was evacuated with my 3 sisters who were all younger than me. We lived in Stepney and were poor. I remember my mum said to us:
“Whatever happens stay together.”
They took us to Willingdon just outside Eastbourne. They took us into a church hall and gave us each a carrier bag full of goodies. .” We were the only family of four there. Different people came offering homes but they could only take two of us so we said: “No.” In the end we were the only four left in the hall. So a man and woman came up — the man had come up to us before and I can still see him now scratching his head and smiling and he said:
“Alright, I’ll take the four.”

Anyway we got into a car (I had never been in one before) and he took us to this great big house with its own drive and goodness knows what. He was a retired doctor. They had a maid, a chauffeur and a gardener. The chauffeur got called up and the gardener had to drive! We had never been in a house like it or had food like it — they had everything. They had 3 children of their own - his son in Bath was a doctor, his daughter Pamela was in the WRENS and his other daughter Diane was in the WRAAF.

They threw us a Christmas party and all the children from the school were invited. As poor as we were my mum always had the rent money on the table to pay the rent man and I could never understand why he never came — of course it was their own house!
We had the time of our lives — they took us on picnics by the seaside. We went to Wannock Gardens — not there anymore it is all built on. That was lovely.

My mum couldn’t come to see us as she never had the money. But my uncle used to work for Sainsbury’s and came down one Sunday while he was delivering. He came from the depot.
We were going to Church on Sunday morning and saw him coming along so we all ran to him: “It’s Uncle Alfie!”
The maid saw us from the window and she was worried and said to Mr and Mrs Mumford: “The children are with a man.”
We introduced him to them and he took them into their home and showed him around, the gardens etc. The when he got home he told our Mum and Dad: “Your kids are alright they’ve done well.”

It all came to an end after ten months because they started bombing Pevensey Bay that was near so we got evacuated again and….. we were lucky again — we got evacuated to a farm. They did not have any children so we got looked after really well but when I was about thirteen I did go back to Willingdon. But I didn’t knock at the house. I wish I had really. I would have loved to go back in.

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