Evacuation: Three Sisters, Two Homes

My mother, Pamela, was born in London in 1933. The middle of three sisters, she was six years old when the Second World War began. With her two sisters, Ellen a year older and Barbara a year younger, she was evacuated to Cornwall when the bombing raids began.

The story of my mum's experience illustrates that it was a random lottery which determined into which home an evacuated child was placed.

Ellen and Barbara were allocated together to one home and mum to another. Mum believed the reason was that no-one was able to take in all three and it was thought it was best for the youngest sister to be with the eldest.

So, at the tender age of six, mum found herself parted, not only from her parents, far away in London, but also from her sisters, who were on the other side of the village and whom she consequently saw only at school.

This would have been hard enough for a small, somewhat timid child to cope with but, even worse, whilst her sisters fell on their feet, with a kind, motherly host, mum was sent to stay with an elderly, single lady, who was something of a termagant. My aunts always spoke of their days in Cornwall with fondness, whilst my mum's memories were not at all happy ones.

An example was that one day her host had baked an apple and blackberry pie. Very nice it was, too, mum said, with lots of delicious fruit and juice. The following day, however, the old lady shouted at her and called her a 'greedy little girl'. Mum did not understand what she was supposed to have done, until she was shown the pie dish, which was now dry and devoid of juice. At six years old, mum couldn't explain what had happened - she knew only that she had not touched the pie. On mature reflection, she could only suppose that the juice had evaporated naturally, but the old lady did not seem to have considered that as a possibility.

The injustice of the accusation that she was greedy and had 'stolen' the juice from the pie dish was distressing and she related this story, and others of a similar nature, to me many times.

An already shy child, the evacuation experience had a profoundly adverse effect on her. She suffered lifelong mental health issues: maybe this would have been the case anyway, but it's likely that her experience was at least a contributing factor.

I am sure that, as mum herself often acknowledged, everyone believed they were doing their best. It was undoubtedly a big sacrifice on the part of the hosts to take the little evacuees into their homes and provide them with a refuge whilst the worst stages of the war unfolded.

And, for many children, like my aunts, it was a positive chapter in their lives, but mum's personal experience illustrates that this was not always the case and, although she emerged from the war physically unharmed, she carried the psychological scars for the rest of her life.