I was recently sent this delightful childhood account by Linda Le Merle about her stay in Fairy Cross as an evacuee in 1944, during the Second World War. These are the recollections of her time in Bideford and in particular, the countryside Parish of Alwington and the hamlet of Ford and Fairy Cross. These are a little girl's "Snapshots in an Album" and we would love to hear from anyone who might be able to fill in the gaps or who recognises the people and places mentioned. If you do then please leave a comment here and a message for Linda.
MEMORIES OF AN EVACUEE IN FAIRY CROSS By Linda Le Merle, née Wolfinden
Strange to say, as I was starting to write a few notes on my
experience as an evacuee in Fairy Cross, Devon, I came across another evacuation
account written by someone who had been evacuated in 1944 as I was, and who had
lived close to me and gone to my Surbiton primary school. Our evacuation began
in June, around the time of my eighth birthday when the buzz bombs were droning
and dropping over England, and lasted three or four months until it was thought
safe to return home. My family had previously been evacuated to Dorset during
the “phoney war” in late 1939, and that, too was for a short time only, before
we all came back to London while the Blitz was going on – curious! In June 1944
the other evacuee and I must have set off together since all the local
schoolchildren were gathered together at an army depot and given their lapel
labels before being taken to the railway station, but she went to Cardiff,
because, she says, “Later I heard that two trains had somehow got mixed up and
in fact we should have gone to Devon.” Mine was the train which did go to Devon
and so I came to spend three or four months in the beautiful countryside near
Bideford. My father stayed at home in the Home Guard and I set off
with my brother Philip and my mother, who was going to be a billeting officer
in Bideford. When young children ask
today if we were frightened to be living through the war, I have to say that unless
we had actually been bombed out or lost a member of the family, fear was not
always a big problem for children – wartime was all we had known. While our parents were often made ill by fear
and stress brought on by the bombing and restrictions, it was change and
uncertainty which were the real threats to children’s states of mind as they
are in peacetime. So – the journey
started with some excitement, and although my mother was nearby, it was only
when I was separated from her and my brother when we arrived in Bideford that I
really started to understand that I would be on my own. From that point on my memories of being an evacuee are like
snapshots in an album, and I’m sorry not to have any real photos to go with
them. The first memory is of walking in a crocodile through the streets of
Bideford. Someone – maybe an older worldly-wise child – said cynically that
this was so that the good citizens of Bideford could pick out a child they
liked. Whatever the truth, most of us spent the night sleeping on the floor of
a community hall before being allocated our billets the next day. This was a
moment of anxiety – the world would end if I couldn’t be placed with my friend
Shirley Bosson. Somehow it was managed,
and somehow all the children were taken to their temporary new homes. At this point the snapshot memory changes from black and
white into colour. We found ourselves arriving at the Fairy Cross cottage of
Mrs Hockin – or her name might have been Mrs Hocking. There are perfumes and
tastes which can transport you straight back to the place where you first
experienced them, and to this day the smell of geraniums awakens the memory of
when I first came across rows of pots of the scarlet flowers in Mrs Hockin’s
cottage living room. From the first moment she seemed to be a kind lady, but
she was already 72 years old, which must have accounted for her forgetting that
children don’t usually like hot milk with the skin on top – rather a difficult welcome
for two homesick girls. I remember the cottage as being cosy, with no running
water or bathroom, but I have no recollection of daily routines, food or the
layout of the house, apart from the fact that the WC was a privy in the back
garden with squares of newspaper hanging on a butcher’s hook behind the door,
and that we washed in a pretty china basin in the bedroom, pouring water out of
the big matching jug.
School for those few months was in the little church hall
which we reached after a short walk through country lanes. We picked sloes from
the hedgerows and were free to walk on our own at all times, but this idyllic
time was not without one black day. We were all deeply shocked to hear that one
girl much younger than ourselves, who sometimes walked with us, had been killed
in the lane, crushed between the posts of a fence round the fields and some
heavy farm machinery which trundled relentlessly down the lane without seeing
her. At the school there were only two classes for
all the children whose ages ranged from five to fourteen. Again, I have no
recollection of the routines, except for one vivid memory of how I spent a lot
of time there. I was taught to knit, and given a ball of grey string-like
thread with which I was to knit a dishcloth. It took most of the time I was at
the school, as I remember, because it had constantly to be undone and begun
again. Whatever else I learned there, I was left with a skill which proved to
be useful for a long time afterwards.
When we were not in school we were free to play in and
around the village, but paths to the beach were out of bounds because the
beaches themselves were defended against enemy attack. I seem to remember that
from somewhere near Portledge House we must have been able to climb on high
ground from where we could see the beaches and the sweep of the coast round to
Hartland Point, with Lundy Island out to sea. There was a wood behind the
cottage where we enjoyed playing, but one day when three of us were running
through the trees we managed to kick up a bees’ nest. The first of us escaped
lightly, the second – I think it was me – received a few stings, but the third
was stung so badly that she had to spend a whole day in bed afterwards. A happier way of spending our free days was
scrumping from trees down the road near the main part of the village. Are there
still Stripey Jacks in Fairy Cross – those little apples with red and gold
stripes which we ate there in great quantities seventy years ago? Shirley Bosson’s mother came for a visit a few times and I
saw my own mother occasionally, but she was kept busy going round the billets
checking that the evacuees and their hosts were getting along together as well
as could be expected. She herself was comfortably billeted with Mr and Mrs Cock
who lived at “Glaisdale”, Abbotsham Road in Bideford, and one day she came to
take me by bus to spend a night with her. I remember a genteel elderly couple,
and most of all I remember the delicious creamy oatmeal we had for breakfast –
very unlike the porridge I was familiar with. Mrs Edith Cock and my mother kept
up a correspondence for many years, and on my bookshelves is a little book she
sent me “with much love and many kind thoughts” for my 21st
birthday. It is called “Character and Conduct”, and the theme for today,
February 9th, is knowing how to be ready, a lesson in avoiding procrastination.
Perhaps I should have looked at it more often from time to time as Mrs Cock
suggested. At this point my memories, black and white or technicolour, run
out. Although we had spent happy times in Devon, I think my mother was quite
relieved to take us home when the worst of the buzz-bombs period was over. My
own brother, who was billeted in Barnstaple, had got into trouble one day with
his friend Derek when they took their catapults out to play. We needed to get
home before being accused of being London hooligans! I only once saw Mrs
Hockin’s house again when we were driving by after a family holiday in the West
Country. I hope it’s still there, and even if it isn’t, it’s still here among
my happy memories.
