Memories of Evacuation from Guernsey to Oldham

Memories of Evacuation from Guernsey to Oldham
Transcribed and edited from a taped interview May 2005

My Name is John Bougourd, I’m 73. The group from the Intermediate school was evacuated to Oldham. We left Guernsey after several bad starts and finally got to Weymouth, then we stayed overnight in a hall somewhere in Weymouth, then we were off on the train to Manchester.
I was eight years old, and the first thing I remember passing was the White Horse in the Vale
Never been there before, going through built —up areas, four or five miles wide, as big as Guernsey. Then we ended up one evening in Oldham, at Mumps station, which we thought was some sort of disease, adjacent to the station was a Co-op hall,,we were ushered into that, there were mattresses around the walls and we slept there for the rest of the night. The next day we were fed and looked after wonderfully by the WVS and then people were invited to come and offer us accommodation, which they did and over about three days most of the boys were taken into care
It was all Boys. It was the Boy’s Intermediate School, and a friend of mine, David Weeks, we were the last two, we were obviously the rejects, and were taken to separate homes so I spent three happy years with Mr & Mrs Megson. They had two younger daughters and myself, so they had a brother.
I had one sister, who had left Guernsey, she was sixteen, she had gone to Bristol, and my mother and grandmother, so the whole family was…. The men were separated. The men either volunteered, or stayed in Guernsey to look after the property, which is what my uncle did. My father ended up in South Wales, in Haverfordwest, and because he was a boating person, he was tied up with the air-sea rescue, although he wasn’t, he didn’t join any of the forces but he was working on air-sea rescue boats. They covered anybody who ditched in the Atlantic, so they were chasing round in air-sea rescue boats
Well I ended up with Mr & Mrs Megson and their kids, and he had a leather manufacturing company and then Mrs Megson was the daughter of a large industrial complex called Stotts of Oldham who used to make chip fryers, canteen equipment, all sorts, which used to go all over the UK. , you see them in chip shops, still, and they had a cottage up in [Linfield], a cottage in Wales, a cottage in the Lake District, and Grandma lived in Prestatyn.
Anyway, in the end, one of the maids the maid that they had living in was upstairs, in the attic, and finally I swapped places with the maid, she came downstairs to keep an eye on the children when we were getting bombed, and I could see out of my window at the top Oldham sky line, I could see Manchester being blitzed.
We were right in front of Hulme Grammar School, where our class rooms were located, we were given three class rooms in Hulme Grammar School for the older boys, and about a mile and a half away was Hollands School, and the youngsters were down there for the first two years, and then we came up to Hulme Grammar School . When we were in Oldham, the Oldham authorities were very good. So that nobody would have any extra expense, we were given thirty afternoons at the pictures, at one of the Oldham cinemas, and the whole school went. The previous week they had the trailer, and as far as I was concerned, they had the trailer “Return of the Mummy” you know, walking down in bandages, petrified me. The following Thursday, I stayed on the bus, went right out as far as the terminus, stayed there for a couple of buses, and then came home when we would have come out of the Cinema, you see, and when I got home, Mrs Megson said “did you enjoy the film” “yes, thank you” “you didn’t” “I did” “you didn’t, somebody saw you sitting at the bus terminus.” So he says “come upstairs” off comes his belt “bend over, John” and that was it.
he didn’t say “This hurts me more than it hurts you” but he could have done. So that was it

Well as I say we saw all the bombing. We had at the far end of Windsor Road we used to get tanks and Army lorries, and we got to know some of the troops. My mother came up eventually, she was buried three times in Bristol when they were bombed, so she finally decided that it was safer up there where I was, so she and my grandmother and aunt came up , stayed just on the edge of Manchchester, which was being blitzed. Oldham didn’t get that much, but places like where Avros was, down towards Manchester, they got very badly My sister worked at Avros and my mother couldn’t sleep, she worked at Avros, and one of the men said, look, I’ll give you something to help you sleep. She said ok, and anyway he came back with a small bottle, he said just put a drop of that on some cotton on your pillow, lay down your head and you will sleep.
Towards the end of the war, I had then moved three times. I slept on a two foot six bed with a boy who was about seven or eight years old, I was older, who was incontinent, we had a cat slept on top of us, there were lice, there were fleas and I only stayed there six weeks, they managed to rehouse me, and Grandfather used to snore and he was in the same room so it was quite exciting. Right along side the laundry which worked all night, it was quite unusual. Anyway I left, and I went to one of the suburbs, which was Chadderton, and I lived in Burnley Lane, in which Barbara Nelson lived, and I was billeted across the road from her, and Barbara’s mum was a lovely lady, and she was a retired teacher, but my foster people were both out working until six o’clock and Barbara’s mother said you’re not staying in that house on your own, I was a latch-key kid, so I used to go and have a cup of tea in that house until my foster people came home. I was twelve. And so that was that, and we settled down there pretty well, and weekends, if there was any spare petrol, which sometimes there was, I would go out with Barbara’s Mum and Dad, and the other weekend or once a month when there was petrol Barbara would come out with Jack and Mary and myself.
Anyway we were all waiting for the war to finish. In May or June they decided that we would all be coming back to Guernsey at the beginning of August, so we, the Intermediate school boys were the first school back in the island.
It was very small, about as big as Oldham, and we’d had freedom to cycle up to Rochdale and various places. Very small
As soon as we got back we drove on the right hand side of the road. All of Guernsey if you like was signed with the German Army road signs.
I was fourteen
We had a broad Lancashire accents. My cousin had come down from Scotland on a scholarship from there, he still has a Scottish accent and jumping to the end of October when school started again, in the playground, the teachers, it was months before they could decipher what everybody was saying, from various parts of the UK. The language problem was terrible.

John Bougourd

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