'I was a World War II evacuee - social services today wouldn't believe the conditions'

Daily Mirror

08-05-2025

The incredible stories of children sent to safety as bombs rocked Britain during World War II have been told as we remember the end of World War Two in Europe
One posh lad discovered outside toilets for the first time, another survived on cheese sandwiches and one little girl didn't have a bath for three years. These three children were among the 3.5 million kids evacuated from the bombs falling on towns and cities across the UK.
Operation Pied Piper in 1939 saw the first of the children packed off to strangers in a bid to keep them alive. The Mirror has spoken to some of these child evacuees who are all now in their 80s and 90s but with memories of being evacuated as sharp as ever. For all of the evacuee children, VE Day signalled not only the welcome news of peace but a chance for them to return to their families.
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It couldn't have come sooner for Doreen Carmichael, then aged 11, who recalls levels of hygiene would probably involve social services these days. Despite the hygiene issues, she is full of respect for Mrs Sarah Bruce who took her and let her live up in the attic with her sister and four children from another family.
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Doreen, now 96, was evacuated from their home in Edinburgh to a town called Cupar, 45 miles away. 'Mrs Bruce was a prominent figure in the town and didn't have children of her own, she was very pernickety, she would send somebody out for flowers for the table when we ate.
'She was kind and we were always well fed, although I can only remember eating bread and butter. But the old, cold house only had a cold tap, an outside toilet, an ancient gas cooker and oil lamps for light. I don't remember ever having a bath in the three years I was there. I know I got a dirty head.
'She had an attic room and that's where all the kids were and she had a commode that we all filled and she had a lady in to do things around the house. Lately I wondered what on earth she did with the commode because the stairs to the attic were really steep, so I think she probably opened the window and threw it out. 'I must have been smelly because we did not get proper wash and I remember saying to her one time: 'My Mummy gave us clean clothes every week', so that must have worried me.'
Something else she remembers is when the air sirens went off. She said: 'When the siren sounded Mrs Bruce would get us all downstairs then we would put our gas masks on and sit with her on her bed until the all-clear sounded. The masks were so uncomfortable.'
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Luckily Doreen came out of her experience unscathed and continues to visit Cupar even now. She kept in touch with the lady she was housed with and even invited her to her wedding.
Historian Margaret Sheridan, who lives in the village of Alveley in Shrops., which hosted 80 evacuees, tells how children generally weren't shipped that far away from their homes.
She said: 'For many children the journey will have felt like a million miles away but in fact they weren't really that far away from home, just far enough away from danger.
'But for a lot this was the first time they'd ever been on a train and when they arrived to their destinations, the first time they'd ever seen a cow or a sheep. This was a real culture shock for some.'
Bill Collins was just seven-years-old when he was evacuated to the Cathedral city of Chichester, West Sussex., from his home 65 miles away in Wimbledon, London.
It hadn't been a hopeful start though, after travelling by train with his label attached to his lapel and clutching a gas mask, they were taken to a couple of addresses but nobody would take them in.
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Luckily the family at the third home, who had two children of their own, welcomed Bill and his big sister Joan, 14, into their small terraced home. Bill had left behind a pleasant tree-lined home in London to live in the terraced house with an outside loo and no bathroom.
The family's daughter moved into her parents room on a makeshift bed to allow room for Bill and his sister. They had a bath once a week in the scullery in a tin bath. It was "quite draughty" and led to a little garden which backed on to a tip that attracted a lot of flies in summer.
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But Bill will be forever grateful for the family and fondly recalls walks where you could peer through the bushes and see pilots ready for take off. For him it was a time of excitement when he could watch the aeroplane "dog fights" in the sky after taking off from the nearby airfields.
'I could see the Battle of Britain from where I was," Bill told The Mirror. 'We had a lot of freedom and we were well looked after. I enjoyed my two years there and I kept going back to see the family who took care of us until they died."
The 93-year-old says the war didn't scare, but fascinated him and he and his friends would spot the planes and could even name the German bombers. He said: 'We talked about the different planes much like young lads will talk about cars now. You could see the planes during the day and you could see the vapour trails behind them showing them circling Chichester before heading off elsewhere.'
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Bill had to go to hospital for his tonsils out when he was there. He said: 'I think something went wrong because I was there for ten days. 'While I was there, nearby Portsmouth was hit and a lot of people were admitted with injuries. Thankfully, those on my ward were not too badly injured. I was the baby on the ward and I was spoiled. Even that was enjoyable. Everybody was really kind to me.'
About the end of the war in Europe, he said: 'VE Day arrived, celebrations all over the country which included street parties for children practically everywhere. Food was taken out and prepared by the mothers who found ways of overcoming rationing. This upright piano was pushed into the street and this chap played all the favourites. It was a very happy day and it put aside memories we had of the bombing of Gosport and Portsmouth.'
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Margaret Sheridan tells how the kids who were 'billeted' in Alveley came from nearby Liverpool. She said that the village was small but the people there were labourers and quarrymen and money was tight. Having more mouths to feed was tough on the locals. She said: 'During the second world war the population of Alveley was in its hundreds and then you have an extra 80 children sent to the village who you have to feed and clothe.
'The city kids arrived with nits and dirty clothes. They would be taken to a church hall and the families taking the children in were really looking for kids who would be able to help them in their line of work. Being an evacuee in Alveley was no easy task, you were put to work. Locals were selecting children who looked healthy and strong.'
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Jim Horsnall, now 92, who believed his status as evacuee meant he was part of the war effort. He was ten when he was shipped off to Teignmouth, Devon, from London in 1940.
He said: 'Those going gathered in the day in our old school playground, labeled, with gas masks, something to eat, some basic clothing and ration book and identity card. Mum was there to wave us off. London Transport double decker buses took us to Ealing Broadway station where the special train, going to no-one knew where, awaited us.
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'The train stopped at Teignmouth. We filed off to a local school, were fed and then formed up in crocodiles with a local teacher leading us and we set off to be delivered to the homes to which we had already been allocated by the Billeting Officer.
'Everyone in our Crocodile was duly dropped off and only skinny little 10-year-old Jimmy (me) was left as the place to which I was due to go was close to where the lady leading the column lived.'
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Jim told how the lady kept trying the door but had to take him in when there was no reply, and this is how he ended up staying with two sisters, Aunty Elsie and Aunty Ethel, in a home a far cry from his basement flat he shared with his mum, dad and three siblings.
He had his own bedroom, a telephone, a bathroom, hot running water and pocket money. Jim went to school but he also helped out at local farms and spent two Christmases being the stand-in Christmas postman.
After his second Christmas, Jim caught Diphtheria and was in a coma, spending weeks at Torbay Hospital. Jim said: 'I am certain that all the food and care Auntie Elsie had given made me strong enough to fight my way through the illness, for, in those months since my arrival in their home, I had changed from a skinny London sparrow to a right Devonshire Dumpling.'
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When Jim was well enough to leave hospital he was allowed to sit and pass the scholarship exam which gained him a place at Grammar School. Sadly the aunties' home was hit by a stray bomb and they were moved on.
Jim explains: 'If the Germans had any bombs left after a Blitz they would just drop them anywhere. They hit my school and my home. Luckily everyone survived but my school and my home were closed up.'
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Jim was moved back to London but was able to carry on his education. He said: 'I think the aunties asked if they could adopt me but my mum wouldn't allow it.' Jim continued to see the aunties throughout his life and they were both present at his wedding in 1956.He attended both of their funerals when they died.
Great grandad of three Jim, who worked in Paddington Station offices, said: 'My time as an evacuee changed the whole course of my life and allowed me to live a life that I could have only dreamed of.'
Iris Collins, revealed how her dad made her and her sister, Diane, their own dog tags for them to wear for the duration of the war so that they would be identified if anything was to happen to them.The young schoolgirl was just five when she was first evacuated with her sister to Bourne End, Bucks, 33 miles from their home in Clapham, London.
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Her family have shared her memories she wrote down for them during Covid where she described: 'With our suitcase and gas masks we assembled at our local school to be taken to the station by bus, we all wore labels with our names and destinations on.
'It all seemed very exciting, a ride on a train, which ended with us being taken to a village hall and sitting on benches…bit by bit the hall began to empty, children were taken out one or two at a time.'But Iris' experience was not initially a happy one as she and her sister were moved three times until they eventually settled with a couple who fed them nothing but cheese sandwiches.
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Iris said she got so fed up with cheese sandwiches she would throw them out of the window. But when the sisters got scabies and impetigo they were returned home and diagnosed with malnutrition.
At Iris' next home when she was eight she was billeted on her own with a family in Cornwall, they were so scared of infection that they wouldn't let her touch anything, labeling her own cutlery and towel, and kept her in a separate part of the house, away from everyone.
She was moved again to another family on a farm where she was happy for the next three and a half years. Sadly her 11 year old sister was unhappy with the family she was with so she returned to London and was killed in the blitz in June 1944.
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You can see from her dog tag, that the family still have, that hers was damaged.
Iris died two years ago, aged 89, and her grandson Venner Turner, 36, now tells his gran's story with pride after she wrote down her story before she died.
Stanley Cording had only two memories left when he died of dementia last year at age 92, his daughter Alison Taylor, 59, explained.
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Alison said: 'One memory was of meeting my mum and the other was one he had from his time as an evacuee, and he would tell anybody who would listen.' Stanley was looked after by a childless and doting couple in the market town of Colne after Manchester took a beating when he was eight years old in 1940.
He was well looked after by a Mr and Mrs Shackleton, who bought him new clothes and was well cared for. He was jealous of his brother Fred who lived with another family over the road and was allowed to play out with the kids on the street at all hours.
Alison said: 'One time when he and his brother were walking to school they were talking of how much they missed home and Stanley said he could pay for them both to get home because he had enough money.
'When they made it home they were a bit worried about what their mum would say and hid in the Anderson shelter until they were spotted by a cousin. When they were dragged back home by their ears the family felt so sorry for them they were allowed to stay. But my dad always kept in touch with the Shackletons after the war and visited them with his new wife and my two older sisters. He did miss home but he was happy.'