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The Home Front in Tredegar during the Second World War A Key Stage 2 Educational Resource Pack Part 2—Evacuation
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Evacuation Who? When? Why?
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As trouble grew in Europe, the Government wrote to all local councils in Britain in January 1939 about their plans to move children away from cities, which were at great risk from enemy bombing. The city children were to be sent away to live in villages and small towns during the war where they would be much safer. This was called the ‘evacuation scheme’ and the children who were sent away were known as ‘evacuees’.
The Government called the plan ‘Operation Pied Piper’ - can you guess why it was given this name?
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Everyone expected the bombing of cities and towns to begin as soon as the war started. In March 1939, the Government advised the council in Tredegar that it could expect about 3,000 people to be evacuated here. Councils were expected to make arrangements to find suitable places for the children to stay whilst they were evacuated.
Right: Ministry of Health advice on the Government’s evacuation scheme for January 1939
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As war was being declared, the evacuation from cities began. In just four days in September, about 1,250,000 people were moved! The evacuees were sent to places such as Tredegar that were less likely to be bombed.
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What advice was given to parents?
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Most children travelled with their schools and teachers. Mothers with children under 5 years of age were evacuated as well.
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Advice given to parents
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Advice given to parents
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Advice given to parents
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What did evacuees take away with them? All evacuees were Girls were also meant to take: supposed to take: Gas mask Pyjamas Comb Towel Soap Face cloth Handkerchiefs Toothbrush Boots Coat Identity Card Ration Book A label
Cardigan Knickers Bodice Petticoat Stockings
Boys were also supposed to take: Shirt Trousers Pullover Underpants Socks
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What would you take if you were evacuated from home? In the space below, make a list of 18 things that you would need to take with you if you were evacuated. You will have to take a gas mask, ration book, identity card and a label so you only have a choice of 14 things. 1. __________________________
10. __________________________
2. __________________________
11. __________________________
3. __________________________
12. __________________________
4. __________________________
13. __________________________
5. __________________________
14. __________________________
6. __________________________
15. __________________________
7. __________________________
16. __________________________
8. __________________________
17. __________________________
9. __________________________
18. __________________________
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All evacuees had labels tied around their necks whilst travelling. These labels contained important information about each child, but it did make them look like parcels! How would you have felt about wearing a label?
Written on each label was: Child’s name Name of school Date of travel
Whilst most children would have travelled with their class, they didn’t know when they would see their families again. They would also be separated from their class friends once they arrived as they would be sent to stay with different people. How would you feel about leaving your family for a long time and not knowing with whom you were going to stay?
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Left: Photo of an evacuee with his label visible on the outside of his coat. Below: Photo of evacuees arriving after a long train journey on their way to their new homes. Look carefully for their labels and the carrying cases for their gas masks. What would you be thinking about if you were one of the children?
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Mysterious codes hidden on your label! All children were examined by doctors before they were evacuated to identify any diseases which could spread to other people. A child with a disease or infection would have travelled in separate carriages and was usually sent to stay in a hostel rather than placed with a family, until they were better. The Minister for Health in charge of evacuation wanted to make sure that this information was always kept with the child but also to ensure that it could be read quickly by doctors and health officers who would have been the first people to see the children at the end of their journey. In order to do this, the Government devised a system of simple codes and symbols that were written on the labels which the children always carried with them.
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Each child had one of the following symbols written on their label: = Medically inspected (in other words, no problems!) = Hostel (has a more serious infectious disease or problem) = Special consideration (a less serious infection or problem) Those children who had a circle or square on their labels had been identified by doctors before they were evacuated as having a disease or health condition.
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On the back of the label, a letter code identified exactly what the health problem was. A = Impetigo— infectious skin sores—always sent to hostel B = Scabies—infectious itchy skin—always sent to hostel C = Vermin—body lice—always sent to hostel D = Nits — special consideration E = Enuresis—Bedwetting—special consideration F = Infectious disease contact—special consideration G = Other—special consideration
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Make your own label You will need: String Scissors Pencil or pen Red crayon or pencil Template for label (on next page) Print off the template on the next page on stiff white card. Cut out the label. Make the hole carefully with a pencil and thread string through it. Write your name, the name of your school, and the date of travel. With a red crayon or pencil, mark the label with a cross, circle or square symbol. Remember that if you use a circle or square you will have to add a letter on the back of the label to explain exactly what kind of health problem you have! Don’t forget to take the label to the museum!
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Label template
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On 15th February 1940, the Government’s health minister made a radio broadcast. On the right is copy of the first part of his speech. At this stage in the war, not much fighting had taken place, at least little in comparison with what was to come! This early stage of the Second World War was called the “Phoney War” and few bombs were dropped on Britain. Many evacuees’ families decided that it was safe enough for them to return to their homes in the cities.
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In 1940, the Government once again drew up plans to evacuate children from major cities such as London and Birmingham just in case the war situation in Europe turned against Britain and our wartime ally at that time, France. The evacuees came in with their own teachers who acted as social workers because not all houses were ideal. These teachers not only taught but looked after the kids, looked after their social well -being as well. They made sure that they behaved themselves and that the families were looking after them properly. They were in a sense the first social workers, you may say. Leslie (an evacuee) speaks very highly of all the teachers who went out with him. Peter M. Jones
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In April 1940, 1067 evacuees arrived at Tredegar by train from London. When they arrived, every evacuee was given emergency rations—a tin of canned meat and a tin of condensed milk! Volunteers including the Tredegar branch of the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) supported the medical staff (doctors, health visitors and nurses) in welcoming the evacuees, feeding them and organising the transfer of the evacuees to local people with whom they would stay (known as ‘billets’ at the time) during the evacuation.
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Emergency rations At the beginning of the war, evacuees were given emergency rations to take with them to their ‘new’ home. For evacuee, Leslie Churchill, this was a bar of chocolate and a tin of corned beef. For others, it would have been a tin of condensed milk and canned meat. Emergency rations were stopped in June 1940 because the Government thought that ‘receiving areas’ had enough food. Find out what types of canned meat were available during the war.
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Feeding the evacuees Arrangements needed to be made to feed the evacuees as well as finding places for them to stay. Councils had to make sure that extra supplies of food were available. The letter opposite lists the range of food and drinks that were given to evacuees. What things on this list do you eat and drink regularly?
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Jewish evacuees There had been a small Jewish community in Tredegar since the 19th century. Jewish children from London were evacuated to Tredegar in the war. A Jewish committee in London was concerned to make sure that all evacuated Jewish children received religious education in the Jewish faith.
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Left: Reply from Tredegar council to the Jewish committee in London, promising to make contact and offer to help the local Rabbi.
We knew that the Jews were being badly treated. We knew that, but there was no knowledge of concentration and extermination camps. It was only after the war, with the liberation of Belsen that this information, the horrors of the Nazi extermination camps, came to the public’s attention. In this town there were anti-Jewish riots in 1911 and yet this town became a refuge for many Jewish people. Many came out of London to this area and stayed with the Jewish community. The irony was that the place in which the Jews came to seek refuge during the war was one that had been anti-Jewish in 1911. But there’s always been a strong sense of community here and people have always been welcome. Peter M. Jones
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Newspaper advert to persuade people to look after evacuees, March 1940.
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People were encouraged by the council in Tredegar to agree to provide homes for evacuees during the war. On the right is a form that would have been completed by a visiting officer usually from the WVS who would find out if the house was suitable, how many children could stay and how much additional bedding was needed.
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On 10 May 1940, German armed forces using new tactics launched a number of attacks upon Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Britain and her allies could not match these ‘blitzkrieg’ attacks. In just six weeks, all 4 countries had been defeated and the British army only just avoided being trapped in northern France. Before the German army captured the port of Dunkirk on 4th June, 338,000 British and French troops were rescued and returned to Britain.
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As the news of the fighting in Europe grew worse, arrangements were made to evacuate children from towns on the south-east coast of England to South Wales. On 19th May 1940, Tredegar received news that at 10.28am, a train had left Folkestone and were heading their way! Many of these evacuees had been evacuated from London only a few weeks earlier!
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Message from the town of Folkestone to Tredegar on 19 May 1940
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On 22 May 1940, Tredegar Council received a letter from a parent, Henry Brazier, who was concerned about 2 of his children, Kathleen and Eric, who had just been evacuated to Tredegar from Folkestone.
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The Braziers were a small family who lived in Catford, South London. Henry Brazier married Florence Finch in 1928. In 1929, their first child, Kathleen was born. In 1933, their first son Eric was born and in summer 1939, their second son Edward was born. In Spring 1940, the children and their mother were evacuated to Folkestone. However by May 1940, as the war situation grew worse, it was decided to move London evacuees from Folkestone to Tredegar. Unfortunately the children were moved whilst their mother, was in London with baby Edward.
Catford, London
Dunkirk
England
Folkestone
France
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Henry Brazier wrote to Tredegar Council on 21 May 1940 to find a room in which the children’s mother could stay at Tredegar so as to be close to all her 3 children. The Council’s reply is shown below; from this letter it appears that Eric and Kathleen were staying in separate houses. We don’t know if the children’s mother, Florence, came to Tredegar to live. However by 1943, we know that the family had returned to London. This decision would have terrible consequences—see next page.
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On 20 January 1943, a German plane dropped a massive bomb on Sandhurst Road School in Catford, London. The explosion killed 32 children and 6 teachers. 60 were injured with many buried for hours under the rubble. Six children died later in hospital including Kathleen Brazier, aged 13, who had been evacuated to Tredegar in May 1940.
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In summer 1940, as the war situation grew worse, a second wave of evacuees arrived at Tredegar from London. Right: Report from 22 June 1940 about the London evacuees’ arrival.
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By summer 1940, there were 1,998 evacuees ‘on the books’ in Tredegar. This didn’t include a few hundred ‘unofficial’ evacuees as well! Two hostels were also opened up including one for ‘difficult’ boys!
At the peak period, 11 empty business premises were also opened up to house evacuees including mothers with young children.
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One of the emergency hostels for evacuees may have looked like this.
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After the surrender of France, from 25 June 1940, Britain fought on alone against Germany. An invasion of Britain by the Germans was thought very likely to happen. However the German air force failed to defeat the British air force during the summer of 1940—this was called the ‘Battle of Britain’.
British fighter planes called ‘spitfires’ fought the German air force in the Battle of Britain
By September 1940, the German air force decided to switch tactics and turned its attention to bombing British cities, especially London.
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In September 1940, the German air force began bombing London—the ‘Blitz’.
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The London blitz or bombing raids lasted for 8 months and caused the deaths of 43,000 people. Many more people were made homeless and another ‘wave’ of evacuees left London and other major cities.
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By August 1941, the number of evacuees and other people staying in Tredegar because of the war amounted to 2,160. By this time, German attention in the war had turned to the east when it attacked Russia. By December 1941, the U.S.A. joined the war on the side of Britain and her allies against Germany and the axis forces. The allies experienced more disappointments in 1942, but by 1943 the tide of the war had turned decisively in favour of Britain and her allies.
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In 1944, Russian armed forces scored massive victories against the Germans. On 6 June 1944, British, American, Canadian and Free French troops began the invasion of France with the ‘D-day’ landings on the beaches of Normandy. At last it finally seemed that it was safe for the evacuees to return to their homes. However, in revenge for the D-day landings, the Germans began firing long-range flying bombs at London and towns in the south-east of England. These bombs were called “doodlebugs” after the noise they made whilst flying overhead. More advanced and faster, V-2 rockets were also fired at London in the last year of the war.
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Below: Photographs from Watford, London showing the damage caused by a single V-1 flying bomb attack. These attacks caused another ‘wave’ of evacuations.
Doodle-bug (V-1) and V-2 rocket attacks continued until the end of March 1945. The war in Europe ended in May 1945. At long last, it was safe for all evacuees to return to their homes in the cities.
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Evacuation timeline 3 September 1939: War is declared. Trains start to bring evacuees from cities to Tredegar. They are welcomed by ‘billeting officers’ and placed in the care of local people. September 1939 to April 1940: The “Phony War” - hardly any bombs were dropped on Britain. Lots of evacuees went back home. June 1940: “Battle of Britain” between the British and German air forces. People fear invasion by German land forces. September 1940: Heavy bombing raids of London by German planes known as the ‘Blitz’ begins. The raids killed 43,000 civilians and lasted for eight months. Lots of evacuees who had gone home earlier in the war are evacuated once more to escape the bombing. June 1944: German flying bombs called “doodle-bugs” and later, V-2 rockets, are fired on London and the south-east of England. Attacks continue until the end of March 1945.
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Memories of an evacuee by Leslie Churchill Leslie was evacuated to Tredegar in 1940. After the war he decided that he wanted to stay in Tredegar so he was adopted by his foster family. Leslie’s story at Tredegar is to be found at the end of this section. They got us out of London the day that war broke out. They sent my school to Folkestone, near to the enemy as possible! It was very disorganised there. Then we came to Tredegar.
I’d be up at four in the morning to help Walter Grey the milkman. He was our milkman. I would get up and get myself dressed, sit at the top of the road. Walter would come up and he’d pick me up. I’d go around the farms and pick apples and then come back and deliver the milk. People would come out with jugs, and he knew everyone’s names.
We did a play as evacuees in Saint James’ Hall. It was to raise money for the troops, and they sent up to London to get the costumes.
I wasn’t used to having a room to myself or a bed to myself. I’d grown up two or three in a bed and I’d never had a bedroom to myself so it was a big step up for me.
I had never been in a car in my life. I was put with another boy and taken to Harford Street. I knew nothing about my brothers and sister, and we never met up after that.
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Boys from Tredegar County School in 1946
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Memories of Leslie’s ‘new’ brother by Peter M. Jones Leslie was 7 years old. I remember him arriving – not very well dressed and carrying a brown paper bag containing a bar of chocolate and a tin of corned beef, which was a gift given to all foster parents.
Les had been evacuated with some of his school and they all attended classes held in the Scout Hut in Scrwfa. It was about a mile away and he walked there and back four times a day, because there were no school dinners.
It was in 1940 when my brother came to live with us in Tredegar.
At that time I was keeping a diary, and I looked at it the other day, and I said. ‘Our evacuee came today. His name is Leslie Churchill. He cried tonight.’
The evacuees fitted in remarkably well. They were always known as ‘cockneys’. They weren’t really cockneys as such but nevertheless they were always known by that name.
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Memories of Tredegar’s evacuees by Peter M. Jones It must have been about 1943-44. There was a new evacuation that came into town, and that was a girls’ school; a private or a very upmarket girls school, ‘Honor Oak’. And if you can imagine a school which is designed perhaps for about 120 pupils; suddenly it had to take something like 200 pupils. It was somewhat chaotic until the threat of the V-2s and the Doodlebugs, the V-1s against London really ended and then they went back.
Some of them were real characters. In the street where I now live, one of the evacuees was, he was always “Dolly Dates”. And Dolly Dates lived with a collier, and in the collier’s shed in the bottom of the garden, Dolly found 4 cast iron wheels. He made a trolley, so he became Dolly with his Trolley. And every Saturday you’d hear Dolly, 8 o’clock in the morning, that trolley rattling, all the way down the street as he pulled it down the street over to where Sirhowy Ironworks used to be, where there was Rickard’s Level. People would wait there till Dolly arrived, buy their coal, and then he would put it on his trolley and he would pull it back, whatever it was, he was a strong lad. And Dolly and his trolley became a very important part of the environment as it were.
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Memories of evacuees by Bryan Rendall During the war years, we only heard about the bombing of London and other cities from the news programmes on the wireless or in the daily papers. As far as we children were concerned we just carried on with our way of life, except in 1939 we were all kitted out with gas masks, in cardboard boxes, from behind the Georgetown police station. We had to carry them with us all the time.
Below: Young children were given ‘Mickey Mouse’ gas masks to wear
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I think it was in 1940 that a train came into Tredegar station with human cargo. The train was crammed full with young children from the east end of London. The Salvation Army and other organisations knocked on every door in Tredegar, asking how many bedrooms there were and how many people were living in the house. We lived at No. 49 Kimberley Terrace. You couldn’t refuse to take a child and my parents had to take in two girls. I had to sleep in the same bedroom as my parents to accommodate our new visitors.
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Each child had a name tag and a gas mask along with their little case. Many held their most prized possessions—often a teddy bear—that they cuddled. They had been on the train for hours and were tired, hungry and exhausted, but after lots of drinks and a good meal they started to feel much better and perhaps, less homesick.
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The first job that my mother did was to bathe the girls and burn their clothes. The poor children must have come from very poor homes but my mother felt they should now be clean and flea free. She then cut up some of her dresses and other clothes to fit the girls.
We now learned the true story of what was happening in London: The night attacks on the east end of London by the Luftwaffe [German air force] which killed and injured thousands of people in their homes and workplaces.
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The people most at risk – school children were evacuated to what the Government thought would be areas that wouldn’t be bombed by the Germans. The Welsh valleys was such an area. My area of Georgetown had a number of evacuees and after a few weeks we all seemed to get on well together. We played our various games and became good friends. We attended the same schools and competitions in games was great for us. It was like a rugby international, Wales v England!
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The young evacuees taught us so much – how to smoke! They were more sociable and daring than we, valley boys. We learned a lot from them and I hope that we passed onto them some of our culture. We told them that milk didn’t come from churns but from cows, and meat came from various animals. The girls stayed with us for 2 years. When they returned to London after the blitz, my mother wrote a few letters to them, but never received any replies.
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A Tredegar Evacuee - Leslie Churchill’s full story I was nearly 7 years old on 3 September 1939 when I walked to Grove Park Station in south-east London with the rest of my London primary school, all of us wearing a luggage label bearing our names. I recall my mother coming out of our council house to kiss my brother, sister, stepbrother, and myself the youngest, as we passed by. It was feared that London would soon suffer German bombing and children were being sent to places of safety. Amazingly our destination was Folkestone, which was about as near as possible to the advancing German Army just across the Channel in France. Upon arriving there, the whole school was marched in groups from door to door to be selected by rather apprehensive residents. After a short stay at what seemed a very posh house or B&B overlooking the sea, we were soon transferred to an OAPs very basic home that had neither gas nor electricity. I was frightened of the dark for the rest of our stay in Folkestone.
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We were taught in local schools in the morning, and went for long walks in the afternoon; our wonderful teachers were lifesavers at the time. I still have a letter that old couple sent to me in Tredegar expressing fear of the shelling from France— “You hear the bombers coming, not the shells.” Tragically later, they would both be killed by a German shell. In May 1940, before Dunkirk, there was a rumour that we were to be sent on a big ship to Canada but, in the event it proved to be a long train journey to Tredegar, Monmouthshire! Here I recall a warm welcome at the Scwrfa Drill hall— gentle, kind voices and well-planned organisation. Then two of us, each given a brown carrier bag containing a big bar of Cadbury's chocolate and a tin of corned beef, were ushered into the back seat of a car. Very exciting since I had never been in a car before. We stopped in Harford Street, Sirhowy and being cheeky Cockney kids both jumped out. “Not you,” said the driver to me, “you jump back in.” Something that proved a pivotal moment in my life.
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Being a fellow evacuee in the same street, the other boy became a very good friend whom I met by chance in London after the war when he was driving a baker's horse and cart. We recognized each other at once. I was taken a short distance up the street to the house of Clarry and Phyl Jones and their son Peter. I was soon to learn that when asked, with friendly interest, “Who are you, then?” Answering simply, “Clarry Jones' evacuee” was passport to local integration. My own children often recall Mrs Morgan of the paper shop in Church Street telling everyone in the shop: “This is Clarry Jones' evacuee.” And that was 30 years after the war had ended! Young as I was, I noticed the great change from a very basic Folkestone house to this bright, spacious home with its French windows, flowers in the hall, upstairs bathroom and a garden. At first the family couldn't understand my Cockney speech and were worried whether they ever would?
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Suddenly I was upset, missing my protecting brothers and sister. We had all come to Tredegar together so why had we been separated? Peter produced his toys, train set and a yacht, to divert me. In this new house, not only did I have a bed to myself but a whole bedroom. Peter, I am told, had excitedly awaited this new playmate all day but couldn't have been much impressed by my undernourished, skinny-self, 3 years his junior. Because of that time all my family still have close contacts with Wales. My Welsh accent returning, so they tell me, as soon as we cross the Welsh border. During the following three years, I adjusted to my new life in a valleys’ schoolteacher's home, in a street where soon I knew everyone by name and became part of my new, wider family. I had my first-ever box of chocolates at Christmas, all for myself, and went to Carmel Chapel because my Welsh best friend went there.
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We spent many a long summer’s day on the tips, quite grassy then, our games playing at being British soldiers attacking the Germans, being interrupted only by having to go home for dinner – wonderful times. For me, the war was Mr Jones in his Home Guard uniform complete with revolver. Sometimes I was allowed to watch him instructing on machine guns at the Scout Hut. We would sit at the top of Harford Street watching convoys of American lorries pass by; the Yanks throwing out sweets and speaking just like they did in cowboy films. We had an evacuee classroom at Sirhowy School and Mr Scholar, our teacher of fond memory, ended each day reading to us from Treasure Island. I don't recall much tension between us and the local children but having at hand a Welsh "big brother" probably helped me. I experienced for the first time, black-faced miners rushing out from the colliers' train at Sirhowy station, the pits themselves, real mountains and ponies and sheep.
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I found Tredegar winters very cold compared with a milder London, the snow deeper and longer lasting, but sledging down the tips and even Sirhowy Hill was a new excitement. We played games too, in streets with little traffic and were given wild rides on Samuel's milk float - no “Health and Safety� rules then! Sunday School meant Whitsun parades with banners, Mr Evans, Carmel Chapel striding out front, races in the vicarage field and chapel slab cake to eat. Peter's cousin John Lawrence (on embarkation leave to the Far East) brought home his rifle, and his brother Alf when also home on leave, told of life on a corvette escorting Atlantic convoys. I recall my own mother travelling from London on an organized trip to visit us. She told me of the London air raids, but even in Tredegar bombing was familiar to me as often we watched the night time glow of Swansea burning from our bedroom windows.
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We were taught by evacuee teachers, Mrs Gilham and Miss Upson. In 1943 before my 11th birthday, I won a London scholarship to a Bluecoat school. Partly because the idea of my wearing a blue coat and buckled shoes didn't arouse much encouragement from my valleys’ friends, I declined but unfortunately was granted another scholarship, at Bromley Grammar School, Kent. London was then considered safer from air attack but I could not understand why I had to go to this school rather than Tredegar Grammar? Years later I met Mrs Gilham and Miss Upson during one of their regular visits to their wartime billet in Railway View, Tredegar. They told me that they had been unhappy about me going to Bromley Grammar School since it aped public schools and was rather posh and snooty. Returning to London in the summer of 1943, my mother took me to be sized-up by the headmaster whose first words were, “You will have to learn to speak properly if you are to progress here” - I didn't realise I had acquired a Welsh accent. When answering in class sometimes I was told not to speak in that silly way.
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When the music master made each boy sing a solo to assess our voices, I sang “All Through The Night” in English, to which he replied, “Quite good but rather miserable—but then the Welsh are a miserable lot.” I was puzzled. The bombing of London hadn't ceased and since we were only 10 miles south east (of the centre), it meant taking off only our shoes every night to go to bed, and being roused around midnight by the sirens and familiar sound of German bombers. We would see the whole estate ablaze from incendiaries, hear the nearby anti-aircraft guns opening up furiously as German planes passed over; there was even a mobile ‘Bofors’ gun outside the house. We gave names to our local barrage balloons and noted those missing each morning if shrapnel had brought them down. One morning going to school by bus I saw Bromley High Street devastated, and even my school had a near miss.
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In 1944 came the Doodle Bugs (V-1) and later V-2 rockets, far more deadly because they struck without warning. We slept in our Anderson air raid shelter—a sort of underground, metal box in the garden, which was not very pleasant. The many bomb hits all around made red bricked and tiled houses as grey as valleys slate roofs from the dust of the massive explosions—even the bodies of those killed by blast and strewn around were like grey statues. When I returned to Tredegar in 1944, the sound of a throaty motorbike exhaust (much like a V-1) had me diving for cover by the nearest wall. In the spring of 1944, my elder brother, on leave from the army in the run up to D-Day, met me off the bus from school. “Must make a phone call, come with me!” Then I heard, “Message for adjutant—request extension of leave—Mother died.” Then he said, “That's how it is Les.” Blunt, but that was London and the war. She had been ill with cancer for some time. So it was decided to return me to Tredegar and my Welsh family.
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As I climbed out of the fug of our Anderson shelter for the last time to travel by train and bus to Paddington Station, a doodlebug came in over our flats at chimney height but flew on. What a goodbye! Later nearing Paddington, the bus lifted slightly as a V2 exploded behind us and the conductress smiled at me reassuringly. I remember, too, the lovely sound, Welsh sound, of “Newport, Newport,” as the guard directed me to the Sirhowy train. I was sent to see Mr Saunders, headmaster of Tredegar Grammar School. It all seemed so easy. “Yes, no bother. I know who you are— Clarry Jones' evacuee”. By the end of my first day, I seemed to know everyone. When I left Bromley Grammar School, I could name very few as friends and there was no farewell. But at Tredegar Grammar School, I was welcomed and very happy. Then came VE day and all evacuees returned to London. I still have the letter of farewell written by Mr Griffiths (geography and form teacher) signed by all the class who had made a collection for me.
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So I had VJ day in London. However, with no mother and a disintegrating family, my loving stepsister (who looked after me 1943-4) wrote to the Jones family to say that I was unhappy and would they consider having me back. Peter recalls that his father said to him, “It is your choice. If you say ‘yes’ it means for life.” His “yes” and his parents' loving welcome back into their home will seem incredible to many, but was most typical of their great generosity of spirit. Such warmth and friendliness I associate always with the people of Tredegar and the Valleys as a whole. So Clarry and Phyl Jones became Mam and Dad, and Peter my brother. I still have the telegram, “Leslie arriving Newport …” that Mam had kept safely. My only hesitation over returning to Tredegar was embarrassment at meeting Mr Griffiths and the class who had collected to give me a leaving present. Should I offer to return it? Of course nothing was ever said, and yet again I was given a very warm welcome.
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Books and TV series about wartime evacuees often emphasize traumatic experiences such as being placed with stern, inflexible, uncomprehending foster parents. Certainly my Folkestone OAPs were very poor, but did their best and were kind. Their only son was called up while we were there and the old lady had me hold her hand while shopping to stop her crying at his departure. I remember how her son made me wooden models of the German Graf Spee battleship and the Royal Navy’s Exeter, Ajax and Achilles that fought her to a standstill at the River Plate. That was real kindness, as was that I received at Tredegar where I was completely kitted-out in new clothes amongst which was a superb new overcoat, my first-ever, of which I have happy memories. I have since been told that the case with which I arrived and its contents were discreetly burnt.
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Obviously evacuation was a hard experience for some but I was very fortunate. Bedwetting affected many of us but there was no fuss and it disappeared. My step brother recently visited Tredegar with his wife and was excited to trace the family with whom he had stayed. My sister kept in touch with her Tredegar foster mother for many years. Tredegar and the valleys helped mould me. What did Dad say to Peter in 1944? “If you say yes to Leslie coming back here, it will be for life.� He was a knowledgeable man indeed. Leslie Churchill, 2007
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Sylvia Bloomfield’s memories as an evacuee in Tredegar My family - mother, father, 4 sisters and 3 brothers - lived in a flat in Hackney, London. My father worked in the Post Office and my mother, when she had the time, worked in service. I was evacuated from the London area at the outbreak of war in 1939 with three of my siblings. Eve and I are twins and were five years old at the time. Dolly was 4 years older than us, and Stanley was 2 years older. The government, fearful of the catastrophic effects that an aerial attack would have upon the children living in large, populated areas of England, had devised a method that they felt would save the younger children from bombing raids in the event of war. I later learned that the process was called Operation Pied Piper. Hindsight revealed later that the evacuation was not necessary but who would have known at the time?
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We were first sent to Folkestone, Kent, where the Government had listings of volunteer families who lived throughout England and other countries that would accept and care for the children who were being evacuated from London. From Folkestone, we were allocated (yes, that is the word used) to certain towns and villages where we would have a better chance of surviving the war. There were four of us, from the Bloomfield family, who fitted the age profile and the Government did the proper thing by sending all of us to the same town, Tredegar in South Wales. There were no families who would accept 4 young children but there was one who would take two of us, Mr and Mrs Went of Walter Street, Tredegar. They had no children of their own and this situation might have been a godsend for them. Then again, maybe not!
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Mr Went must have been a coal miner because he came home each day covered with black soot. Evelyn and I were to live with them until conditions or the status of the war changed in our favour and danger had passed, thus permitting us to return to our family. Stanley was to live with Mr and Mrs Williams of 101 Charles Street who had children of their own but, would accept another child. Dolly went to live with a Mrs Whitchurch, a schoolteacher. She must have been a good teacher because Dolly came home with much more knowledge than the rest of us.
Eve and Stan revisit the Williams’ house in Charles Street (left) and the Wents’ house in Walter Street (right)
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Eve and I shared a bedroom of our own in the Went household. I remember vividly that the house was on a corner and that, by going out the front door and turning left, I could see a field with grazing sheep. I remember that the town, and all about it, was so clean and pretty, rolling green hills around, and so peaceful. Mrs Went would bundle Eve and I up well and we would be sent outside to play and would have to remain outside until they decided that it was time to come inside. I also remember snow, a lot of snow; Eve and I would look into the windows of other homes and wish that we could go inside like the other children. That is not to say that the family was unkind but that they had some strange ideas of how children should be treated. We were required to have a cup of hot chocolate each evening before bedtime. I didn't like it then and I still don't like hot chocolate. While in Tredegar we did occasionally see Stan and Dolly but not often nor for a very long period of time.
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In 1942, we were informed that our Mum would be coming to get us and take us home. Actually, Eve and I had no memory of our Mum, only that we had been told by the Wents that we had one and that she would be coming for us. We remember a short little lady walking toward us on the pavement, as we were outside the house at the time. When she got to us, she said simply, “I'm your Mum and I've come to take you home!� We have no knowledge of the procedure that she went through with the Went Family. We were soon on a train headed back to London. The new home was as strange to us as was the home that we went to in Tredegar, with one huge difference - all our brothers and sisters welcomed us back with lots of hugs. After a few days had passed, it was as though we had never been gone. Sylvia Byrd (nee Bloomfield), 2007