Do you remember the evacuees to Wethersfield in 1939?

I have read with great interest the history of Wethersfield on your web site. I was one of the evacuees deposited on you in September 1939 and, together with my two brothers, was billeted with Mr and Mrs Saines who lived in the end house next to the church.
 It was a very small cottage with two rooms downstairs and two upstairs. No bathroom, toilet outside and I cannot even remember the kitchen. There must have been a kitchen because Mrs Saines, who was a very good cook, produced wonderful Sunday roasts which I can remember to this day.
Mr Saines had a piece of ground on which stood an apple tree and 1939 was, I believe, a very good year for the fruit as I recall many bushels being stored in large baskets under the table in the second downstairs room.
Our arrival in Wethersfield was an accident. We left Wood Green, London in a convoy of double decker buses, probably heading for Halsted, which is where the rest of the convoy ended up. Our bus suffered a punctured tyre and the driver must have got lost and deposited us in Wethersfield. It was many hours before host families were found for the whole bus load.

My parents had, naturally, asked for the three of us to be kept together and I recall sitting in a hall (school hall?) waiting for a suitable family to take us in. We were the last to be accommodated, no doubted hastily as the next day we were transferred to Mr and Mrs Saines.
Readers of this site are invited to send their
memories of events in Wethersfield. Please
I have tried to find out what happened to the other evacuees with very little success and I wonder if the village has any record of the children from Wood Green being billeted in Wethersfield.
As with many of the children we Allisons returned to London before Christmas. However I do recall a girl, named Sylvia?, who did stay for a lengthy period, maybe even after the war. Apart from our hosts I recall a Mrs Bragg who lived along the road and a blacksmith's forge. Also an area known as Sandhills. My family kept in touch with Mr and Mrs Saines for a number of years. They were very kind people, not very young, and must have found keeping three lively boys clean and well fed extremely hard.

Dick Allison formerly of Wood Green (St Michel's Junior School)
Back to You Write index page
  
next...Death by lightning