General Chat

Some of our lot , 1939

' It was a trying time for London parents this morning, when they had to have their children at school by half-past seven. Many mothers had not slept all night. Every child was at Prospect Terrace School, off Grays Inn La., by 7.30, but they did not leave to entrain at St. Pancras till nine. Baggage and food had been stored at the school and had to be collected, so the children arrived with their gas masks and some last-moment treasures or food. Parents were not allowed inside the school grounds, and waited around outside discussing the situation. When the children left to walk to the station it was touching to notice the pretexts mothers used to be with their children again for that short walk. "Harry's case was too heavy for him; Mother would carry it," was the most common one. Fathers brought comic papers, and grown-up brothers and sisters were not above running after the young ones with sweets. Children shouted good-byes to cats and dogs as they marched along the streets they had known all their short lives.'

Before my time.
I was about minus four months when my mother and grandparents were evacuated to Blackawton.

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