Evacuees Were Hard Work!

I was in Winterslow during the war. I had two evacuees and in the evenings I used to go up to the High Post(betwen Amesbury and Salisbury) and do powder and that for the submarines in the factory.

I belonged to the WI (Womens’ Institute) and they had to go up to the factory every night for a couple of hours. We had a bus to pick us up and went up from 6-8pm every night and that’s what I did besides the evacuees.

Our evacuees were from Portsmouth. One was 5 and the other was 6½ and they were two sisters. I had them for 3 years and that was the worst time of my life. They were so dreadful; they were dreadful. I was supposed to have one and the woman next door to me said, “I don’t want any”. So I said, “Well we we’re not parting them”. So I had the two and it was very hard work because I had never had children. It was very hard work.

I did, however, have some lovely times with them then. I had grown fond of them and they’d grown fond of us. When I had my birthday recently one of them came and she still writes to me. Her sister died since with cancer, but the other one still comes up and telephones.

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