Evacuee Boys (7 page)

The seventeenth-century cottage after post-war renovation. (Author’s collection)

Dear Mum and Dad,

I am very glad that Dad is coming to Melksham on Sunday. Will you please do your best to bring my watch down, as I miss it a great deal.

I have not been moved yet, and I am glad that if I am not moved by the exam, I shall come home.

How are you all getting on? How are Tiggy and the kittens? I am all right.

To-day it has been snowing but it did not settle Thank you very much for the money. I am glad Grand-dad arrived home safely. How is Mariska? Send her my love.

Lots of love to everybody,

John

P.S Send my best love to Noni.

John’s original letter of 29 February 1940. (Author’s collection)

A modern 1939 council house. (Author’s collection)

Eventually rewarded for my constant pestering of the billeting officer, I was moved to the luxury of Mrs Robbins’ council house before I froze to death.

Beginning of March
1940

Dear Mum & Dad,

At last I am able to write some good news, because it is safe to say that John will be moved this Saturday. His new billet will be in Martigny Road, at Mrs. Robins & although I have not been there yet, and I do not know the people, I am told that they are nice people, & as to the house, it is a fairly new one, & has a bathroom. Mrs. Robins is Mrs. Trimnell’s daughter in law’s sister, & she is taking John, because Mrs. Trimnell had scalded her foot some time ago, it is so bad now, that she is in bed, & has to have medical attention. I should like Daddy to write a letter Mrs. Trimnell, & to ensure that there are no mistakes I shall enclose a letter which would be suitable. I think that although John has not been very well put up there, having had to sleep with the lodger, it can be understood that she must keep lodgers, as they are her only source of income, & as she is sixty-eight, you can imagine, how tired she is after looking after six person, & doing their washing. She had evacuees since the beginning of the war, & considering her age, strength, & financial position & livelihood, she has done very well indeed, & has done more that her share of National Service in helping evacuees, as there are many people in the town who are richer & younger than she, keep a maid & have no children & yet they refuse to have evacuees. I think that she deserves your appreciation & a letter is the best you can do to show that to her.

I think you ought to be satisfied with the number of cards & letters I have been sending lately, & I should like to have some replenishment for the money I am spending on stamps, & other things. We had 2/5 to share after spending a 1
d
on the postcard, & out of my 1/2½ I spent 2½
d
on milk, 4
d
on Scouts, 1
d
on stamps & have 4½
d
left, out of which about 2½
d
will go to-night on stamps. I do not know how John spent his share, & I do not know how much he has left, but I know that it is not much, so please send more. This Saturday I must get 5/4
d
worth of laundry (3/5½
d
last week) & we should like to cycle to Trowbridge or Chippenham to go to the pictures or go to the pictures here, if it is raining. Please send the money in the form of a postal order, because if you send cash I am liable to be fined.

There is not much more news otherwise, as nothing happened since my last card. However, here is a suggestion as to what Daddy might write to Mrs. Trimnell:-

‘Mrs. Trimnell

4 Church Walk

Melksham, Wilts.

Dear Mrs. Trimnell,

I feel that I should not miss the last opportunity of thanking you for your efforts in making John happy, and putting him up to the utmost of your ability.

No one appreciates it more than I do, that, if John had not been quite comfortable, for having to sleep with a lodger, it was because that was the only way you could manage to feed him and yourself from your mean billeting allowance. Apart from this, the fact that you had evacuees since the war started, at your age, & financial means, is very praiseworthy indeed, & it can safely be said, that you have done more than your share of the National Effort and have done it remarkable well indeed.

I have been extremely sorry to hear o[f] your scalded leg, and I sincerely hope, that you will soon be much better, and be restored to your former health and vigour. At the same time I do wish to apologise for the extra work & inconvenience that was put on you through John, and to than[k] you for managing so well, and really I am glad that you are now relieved of this extra worry.

Hoping that your foot will be better soon

I am, yours sincerely,

(signature)’

Do not think that this letter is exaggerating Mrs. Trimnell’s merits, & I am sure that she will be very proud when she receives it, to have gained so much of your satisfaction. About a fortnight after John is moved I should write another letter to Mrs. Robins thanking her for giving John shelter, & how happy he is there etc. People expect these thanking letters.

I shall leave room for John on the other side.

With love from Andrew

… continued by John on the back

Dear Mum and Dad,

We have very good news, I shall be moved on Saturday. I might go to the Vicarage and I might go to somewhere else. But I am sure I shall be moved.

I have not received my watch please send it.

Lots of love,

from John

This semi-detached on an estate of identical houses boasted a bathroom and toilet downstairs. A very knowing girl, their daughter Ruby was a year younger than me. Three years my junior was their son Michael, with whom I shared a bed. He would later press his face to the frosted glass bathroom window from outside and shout, ‘I can see your black brush,’ when I stood up in the bath.

Now aged 12, I was becoming ever less inadequate in the nether regions and ever more conscious of the subsequent stirrings – these led to matching a past neighbour Gerald’s prowess and also gained Michael’s admiration. The bathroom afforded the privacy to explore, experiment and finally to enjoy the exciting discoveries that followed. I had heard of a mysterious white fluid that passed into a woman’s tummy and often wondered how anybody could know its colour, as it passed directly from inside a man to inside a woman. Now I knew – almost.

Marigolds grew around the front garden, while the back garden was completely cultivated with vegetables. The government’s ‘Dig for Victory’ inducements meant that most people grew their own vegetables and our school provided kids with their own allotments; on mine I grew everything I could sell. A large marrow carried a mile or two would fetch a worthwhile couple of (old) pence.

The fields behind provided endless rambling opportunities among tall hay and wildflowers, backing onto fields close to Andrew’s billet whence I had been so summarily expelled. Before he returned to London on passing his ‘Matric’ exams, and while he was quarantined with the mumps, I was unable to bring him the weekly issues of
The Hotspur
,
The Champion
and
The Adventure
: ‘two-penny bloods’ we both assiduously read. Here, the semaphore signalling we practised at Scouts provided the way to keep him up to date, as we stood on opposite sides of a great meadow and I transmitted the latest adventures of Rockfist Rogan in his 600mph sabre-nosed rocket fighter, which cut the wings off German planes, and how Windy Jones was getting along with the snobs at his highfalutin boarding school.

Charlie Robbins, the father, was away in the army, where he was a cook, and his rusting bicycle languished in the shed, un-ridden, till I could persuade Mrs Robbins – Maud – to let me clean it up and use it. At last, I could ride around Melksham with the other boys and, instead of cadging a bike for the five and a half miles to the Trowbridge swimming baths, I could ride ‘my own’. When Charlie was invalided out of the army and worked at the RAF ‘Camp’ as a navvy, my pedalling freedom ended and I was back to cadging again. More accident prone on foot than on a bike, I slipped on the Robbins’ front path and broke my forearm into a nice curve. The day my plaster was cut off I fell on it again. Hearing the ominous crunch, I walked the mile to the hospital, where an unbelieving sister put it in a sling and sent me home. After several painful weeks, mother took me to Charing Cross hospital during a visit home. I was mystified by the roars of laughter from the medical students surrounding the doctor attending me, when this 12-year-old Scout complained how a stupid Sister had tested his arm for crepitus, to check if my ‘green stick fracture’ had been re-broken. Another few weeks in plaster left me with a strong – if still slightly bent – forearm.

Maud Robbins banned us children from the sacrosanct, linoleum-covered front room, which was reserved for visits from better-off relatives. Instead we spent all of our indoor time on the hard chairs round the kitchen table, where we listened to the wireless. Week in, week out, without variation, Sunday dinner (really lunch) was roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, with (only ever boiled) potatoes. Cold cut leftover beef on Monday was followed by corned beef on Tuesday, my favourite ‘Zoop’ stew Wednesday, sausages Thursday and lamb chop Friday. I was sent out for the fish and chips on Saturdays. Sunday’s pudding was invariably prunes and custard, when Charlie counted out the prunes as he served one at a time onto our plates in turn. He was responsible for baking the weekly cake, evidently the result of his army training.

A lot older than Charlie, Maud Robbins was really stepmother to Ruby and Michael. Thin and scraggy, she was easily agitated. When wearing her Sunday-best clothes, which on such occasions included a corset, her normally absent bottom took on a curiously square shape. An ‘egrivating’ good-for-nothing, I only had to knock the handle off a jug for her to fly into a rage and, leaping out to the back doorstep, lift it high over her head and smash the offending remains into a thousand pieces with apparent relish. Then to my incomprehension, with venom she would invite me to ‘go have a deep one’, after which she would feel better.