The beginning and the beyond - a snapshot of an evacuee's life during WW2"

As an eight year old boy in 1939, my family life in an Islington, London, tenement came to an abrupt end with the beginning of an evacuee’s tribulations.

The nightly incarceration in the bowels of the Essex Road underground station gave way, in the first instance, to being placed in the Cambridgeshire countryside at Cherry Hinton. Then after a few weeks, our carers joined the RAF and another move was made to a gentleman farmer in Berkshire — the Gregorys.

The final move, to Markfield, Leicestershire, was made in the latter part of 1940 where I was reunited with my mother and baby sister. They had been taken in by a matriarch who ran a village grocery store. After some months with this family, we were allocated “a home of our own” by the Parish Council.

I believe that my mother had been subjected to unacceptable servitude and that a member of that family was prone to being perverted and a potential danger to youngsters. These circumstances were of a growing concern which needed urgent remedy — to move away!

Our “new home” — part of a derelict barn — was in a short, grotty, unkempt cul-de-sac. The sparse remnants of our furniture and possessions from our Islington home had arrived to help mitigate the depressing surroundings of a hostile environment.

There are many depressing and frightening memories which are best left to that period of time.

*THIS STORY WAS SUBMITTED TO THE PEOPLES' WAR WEBSITE BY A VOLUNTEER FROM BBC ESSEX ON BEHALF OF GERALD ROBERT KNAPP AND HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE SITE WITH HIS PERMISSION. HE UNDERSTANDS THE SITE'S TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

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