The Trauma Of Evacuees From Big Cities
By Actiondesk Sheffield
People in story: Reg Stone (on Mrs. A.A. Stone (mother)
Location of story: Huddersfield
Background to story: Civilian
This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk –
Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Reginald Stone, and has been added to the site with the
author’s permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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This is a short story about the plight of evacuees and their parents who sent their children
from London to the north of the country. Saying goodbye must have been very
heartbreaking.
Some parents tried their best to visit them, others were simply pleased for their children to
be looked after away from the bombing.
After coming from the city to the quiet countryside, they had to get used to changes in
lifestyle; my mother took a brother and sister, aged 6 and years. They had to walk two
and a half miles to the nearest bus. We had no electricity or gas; we had open fires, hot
water bottles and outside earth toilets.
When they returned home, they discovered they had been orphaned.
I feel a need to mention the English residents in Durban, South Africa. They greeted the
troops as they arrived by troopship on their way to the Far East war against Japan. They
waited on the quayside to take them to their homes and let them have a bath and some
decent food, after being on board the ship for four weeks.
I feel they deserve a special thank you, one particular family, Mr. And Mrs. Matches took
my brother in 1940 and me in 1943. They informed my mother that we had passed
through safely. They corresponded for years.
PR-BR