We
lived on the fringe of the city, away from the more industrialised and
densely populated areas, which were most at risk, and so I was not part
of the 1939 or 1940 evacuation of children from Birmingham (in fact I
had never even heard of the term "evacuees" until the summer
of 1941 when I was five-and-a-half).
By the summer of 1941 when Hitler’s attentions were focused firmly to
the East and we were no longer alone, intensive aerial bombardment and
the risk of invasion had both reduced, at least temporarily. My father
decided that we should try to get a holiday. Since the mid-1930s, and
before I was born, the family had stayed at a farm in the South Hams of
Devonshire, an area between Torbay and Plymouth, at that time remote and
sleepy and little changed in the previous one hundred years. So off
there my mother, sister and I went, to be joined a few days later by my
father and elder brother, abandoning their work and Home Guard
responsibilities for a short while for the attractions of rest, fresh
air and unrationed food. How lucky we all were to have a holiday at that
time.
We were not the only guests at Keynedon Mill on this visit. There were
three boys there too. Bob was probably a year or so older than I; he had
an elder brother of 10 or 11 whose name I can’t remember and so I
shall call him Billy; and the head of this family was the eldest, named
I think Frank, a remote, grown-up fellow of 15 or 16 whom one saw only
rarely. I was told that they came from a part of Birmingham called
Ladywood and had been sent here to avoid the bombing. I hadn’t heard
of this place before but I was struck by what a nice name it was and had
visions of dense foliage and grassy, sunlit clearings. The boys lived in
a large, white-washed single room, the loft either of the main house or
of one of the outbuildings. They ate with the farmer’s family, at a
large table in the entrance hall of the farmhouse. I still have a vision
of them sitting there as we passed through to our own room. The meal was
presided over by the commanding presence of Mrs. Cummings, a lady of
great antiquity - possibly in her late forties - and with a frightening
cane lying ready to hand; this was of sufficient length to reach the
younger boys seated further down the table in case they required any
guidance.
I imagine that Bob and Billy attended the local school in the nearby
tiny village of Sherford but it was August and so they were on holiday.
Frank on the other hand seemed to be engaged the whole time on farm
duties and I know that he got up at some ungodly hour every morning to
fetch the cattle for milking. I didn’t see much of Billy and can’t
say whether he had his own list of duties but I played a lot with Bob
who seemed to have plenty of freedom.
In later years I have often pondered on the mystery of how those three
lads ended up in such a remote spot, so far from home. I don’t know
whether they were part of the September 1939 evacuation although they
probably were. It seemed strange that they were sent such a long way
from home from where their parents – assuming they had any – would
have found it almost impossible to visit them. And when the threat of
invasion loomed from the middle of 1940, lodgings only a mile or two
from the South Coast, even so far west, would not have seemed to be the
safest of locations. I can imagine them being shepherded on to a train
at Snow Hill, labelled and carrying a small package of their possessions
and of course their gas mask, as they embarked on the daylong journey
into the complete unknown. Memoirs of children in this situation, some
of who had never been out of their cities or on a train before, speak of
the wonders of the journey. And so I imagine our trio, gazing out of the
window at an ever-changing tableau of meadow and woodland, cornfields
and unfamiliar farm animals as they trundled south. In their compartment
excitement and wonder at the unfamiliar sights must have been intense
but later, as the day progressed and tiredness started to overcome them,
that would have been replaced by apprehension and even fear about what
faced them. They would have passed through Bristol and Exeter, perhaps
changing trains, perhaps seeing, every now and again, many of their
companions leaving the train at intermediate stops. Finally they would
have alighted at South Brent and clambered aboard a little two-coach
train for the last leg of their long journey. A diminutive GWR tank
engine would have hauled them down the branch line through the rolling
countryside of pastures and red Devonshire earth, where the hedgerows
and line-side trees would have seemed close enough to lean out and
touch. Quite soon they would have reached their destination, and the
very last station, Kingsbridge. What an alien world it must have seemed
as they got off the train and looked around them, at milk churns and
empty cattle pens, the end of a line which stretched all the way back to
the bustle and soot of Snow Hill. And yet they still had another four or
five miles to go, almost certainly this time by horse and cart in the
gathering dusk, through small villages and finally turning off the road
at Frogmore down a lane just wide enough to allow their passing.
Nor do I know how long they stopped at Keynedon. Early in 1944 the farm
and the surrounding area was itself evacuated at short notice when the
US Army took over the nearby stretch of coast and adjacent countryside
as a training ground for the landings on Utah beach. The Cummings family
moved with all their livestock into tiny premises in Frogmore. They were
still there in August 1945 when we visited them. But the boys weren’t
and of course I wasn’t interested enough to ask after them. I have
often wondered what happened to them and how much their time in
Devonshire, with all its fresh air and healthy food but remoteness from
loved ones and familiar city surroundings, affected their later life.
And just how that clash of totally different cultures, inner city
industrial Birmingham and remote, agricultural Devonshire worked, day
in, day out.
My friendship with Bob came to an abrupt and unhappy end. The facilities
in the farmhouse were basic in the extreme – candles and oil lamps; an
outside pump for water and, inside, ewers and china gesunders in place
of any plumbing; and the main lavatory a fruity, fly-blown, wooden
structure containing an earth closet and sheets of newspaper. The latter
was conveniently located out of the front door, along the lane a few
yards, up some steps cut into the earth bank and across a short stretch
of grass to near the waterwheel. I was strictly prohibited from going
anywhere near it with the mysterious threat of “diphtheria” being
muttered, as it always was when anything vaguely unhealthy was being
discussed. Bob and I were playing near the waterwheel one day, feeding
ducks with white berries plucked from a nearby bush. Getting bored with
this, although the ducks weren’t, we decided to investigate the little
house. And not only that, but to leave our visiting card there too. All
of this was of course great fun. But somehow or other the incident came
to the notice of my parents and, probably with a bit of assistance from
me, Bob got the blame for initiating this crime. It must have been
decided that he was not a suitable companion for me and I never played
with him again. Nor after our departure ever heard anything further
about him. I hope that he had a good life and that he always remembered,
as I still do, a sunny day in Devonshire nearly 70 years ago, a flock of
greedy white ducks and a smelly old hut on the edge of a meadow by a
waterwheel.
CM,
Shropshire
Hi,
just wondering if you could publish this wedding photograph of my nan
and granddad.
Leslie
Road looking from Hagley Road