Interviewee: We had the evacuees with us. I felt so sorry for them, because we used to fight them. Its awful kids are so cruel.
Interviewer: Were these ones that came from Portsmouth or London area?
Interviewee: No, they were from London, Eastend most of them. They really were scruffy, full of ringworm and whatnot, poor little devils, had all their head shaved. They were billeted on the community and some of them quite enjoyed it, but us kids didn’t really make friends of them until later on, but initially they were strange. Anything strange, it’s your intent to take aversion to. They didn’t have a very good time but they lived in a big house called Ecclesly. Complete schools were evacuated down here, it was a big house, which they commandeered, and the whole school was billeted there. School accommodation was so short because there was so many children to go to school and not enough [space], so you were farmed out. I think we had the school in the mornings and in the afternoons we spent in the local village hall at Shottermill or at what is now the Free Church at Kings Road or you would be packed off to the museum. But you were taken somewhere else to let the other kids in. It wasn’t bad but whether we learnt much or not I don’t know, but that was what they did with us.