Loretta Whitcomb's Evacuation

A receipt from Queen Mary's maternity home for the contributor's birth (1940). The contributor's family moved from Hampstead out to Oxfordshire at start of war. Loretta Whitcombe was born in the servant's quarters as her mother didn't make it to the maternity ward in time. Loretta was officially baptised by her mother at the time, which she only discovered years later.

Loretta was taken back to London in September 1940 as an infant, when the bombing had already started. Later, her mother took the children to Nottingham.

Father was working in a paint factory in Colindale. One day, as he was walking home in the dark, he fell into shell hole created by bomb that had just landed. Father remained in London throughout the war, and the contributor visited from Nottingham occasionally. Father was in the Home Guard as he was too old (37) and not fit enough to serve.

Loretta remembers being evacuated with her brother to Suffolk, where her brother went to school and was beaten up by local boys. The contributor was there during the harvest and remembers the field being harvested and the rabbits jumping around the field.

When back in London, Loretta remembers sheltering under the kitchen table and an Anderson shelter where the rust used to come down onto her head. During raids, Loretta and her mother slept under the bed which was brought downstairs, and her brother and father would wait until they heard the bombs were close and then join them under the bed.

Before the war, the family sub-let from a German couple. The German couple responded to the call to return to the Fatherland, encouraging the contributor's family to come and visit in 1939. Loretta said that they never heard from the German couple again after the war.