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First of all, a little background information. At the outbreak of war, children from London and its suburbs were evacuated to Kent towns, such as Ashford; among them my own cousin, who came from Erith to live with us. Erith County School were sharing Ashford Grammar School in the same way that we later shared with Witney Grammar.

In the spring of 1940, when the war became active and the Germans overran much of Western Europe, it became clear that an invasion was a serious possibility and all the evacuees were hastily relocated. Erith County went to Maidenhead and to Whitland in Pembs. Kent was clearly a potential trouble area and Ashford was a major rail communications centre which was a probable target, so in due course it was decided to give children from this part of the country the opportunity to be evacuated.

I cannot remember talk of evacuation prior to the event, at least not until a few days beforehand, when the decision had to be made by parents. We left Ashford on 12th September 1940, when I was not quite twelve years old, and on the day when we would normally have returned to school after the summer holidays. I had been staying in Canterbury with grandparents for much of the holiday and had not been in contact with other children from my own school. This means, of course, that we had a grandstand view of the Battle of Britain before we left. As far as I can recall parents were circulated by letter asking whether they wished their children to go and told what arrangements would be made.

I lived in the town centre and we did not go to school to assemble, but straight to the station which was within walking distance. We assembled in groups by school and were similarly loaded onto trains. The only other school I can specifically recall was our equivalent girls school, Ashford County, who went to Burford, but a number of other schools and some mothers who went with their very young children also took part. I can clearly remember one young mother with a baby, a former neighbour, who was in Witney for some time. I think less than half of my own school were evacuated, perhaps 150 out of about 360 pupils and I suppose this was typical. Because we were starting a new school year and changing forms, because a good many staff stayed behind with those not evacuated and because a lot of staff changes were occurring anyway, with the younger men being called up for the services; I cannot recall who travelled with us. The head was a man called Bill W…. (or Chalky) and he commuted between Witney and Ashford. His deputy, named W…. stayed in Witney and others I can recall being in Witney were D….., S……. and G….., the latter being the last to leave Witney and who was integrated into Witney G.S. with the last remains eventually. I had no brothers or sisters.

We travelled with a small suitcase with sufficient clothes to live with and any other necessary bits and pieces, but an absolute minimum of personal possessions beyond that. We carried gas masks in their cardboard boxes, but I cannot remember whether we took food or whether it was supplied by the authorities. I would guess the former. The train that I travelled on had corridors and toilets, which was just as well. In the early stages there was a certain amount of organised attempt to keep us entertained with singing, games and so on, but it eventually gave way to resigned boredom with a journey which became very tedious. The train travelled via Tonbridge, Redhill & Reading to Oxford, but somewhere between Redhill and Reading we were delayed for long periods, several hours in all, with rumours flying about that there was an air raid. We saw and heard nothing and we were eventually told by teachers that it was caused by an engine breakdown. However, my parents tell me that there were rumours rife in Ashford that the train had been attacked and my father eventually contacted a friend in the police, who told him that the line had been attacked, not the train and that no-one had been hurt.

At Oxford, where we arrived in the early evening, having left at about 8 a.m., we were transferred to double-decker buses. When we first arrived we did not even know where we were, because in wartime all place names were removed and we only found out by asking railway and bus staff. We arrived in Witney in mid-evening, when it was nearly dark, were taken to be fed in a hall, I think part of Witney Technical School, behind a non-conformist church in the High Street. It had evidently been decided that it was too late to dispose us that evening and we were kept hanging around whilst it was decided what to do. The eventual decision was to wait for the local cinema (then near the Butter Cross) to turn out and we were deposited there for the night, to sleep on the cinema seats as best we could. After a pretty tiring, boring and unusual day, you may imagine it took some time for people to settle down.

The following morning we set off round the town in a series of crocodiles, accompanied by school staff and billeting officers who did their best initially by persuasion, but with compulsion in the background, to get us placed with people. I and a boy I knew quite well, named Brian C….., finished up in a house in Hailey Road with some people called F…... He was the local manager for W.H.Smith; they had no children and his wife also worked in the shop. Both of them originated from Malvern in Worcs. I remember this billetting process being quite humiliating., because of overheard comments like " I don't like the look of that one" or "Haven't you got any girls?" and so on. The house was a typical 1930ish semi, within about 100 yards of the end of the built up area of Witney, but I cannot remember a street number, although I think I would still be able to locate it.

After a few weeks. C….. returned to Ashford and was replaced by another boy who was a couple of years older and whose name I cannot remember. In both cases I shared a double bed with the other boy and the bedroom, which we were discouraged from using, except to sleep, was the only room which was ours. Immediately before evacuation I had been living over a bank in Ashford, which was quite a large house, but we had not long moved from a very similar semi to that in Witney. After a few months, I think following Christmas, the F…… family felt they had done their bit and asked to be relieved of evacuees and I was moved by myself to a house in The Crofts, with a much older couple called B….., who again had no children of their own. He was a blender at Marriott's Mill and both of them had originated from Ilkley in Yorks. He had come to Witney from Bradford for work, having lost a job in the 1920s depression. I remember this couple with great affection as being extremely kind and I continued to keep in touch with them until their deaths in about 1950, shortly after I left the army. Their house was smaller, an end of terrace with an outside lavatory, which in the winter was pretty cold. Mrs B….. was a very good cook and I particularly remember the Victoria plum jam she made from plums from the tree in the garden.

Apart from family, the only thing that I can recall being missed was the opportunity to get away from other people, but that was probably something many people could not then do, even in their own homes. Apart from the then generally lower standard of living, their were all sorts of restraints brought about by the war, such as the need to conserve energy in both light and heat, the need to maintain a blackout and so on, which meant that families tended to live in one room as far as possible.

I do not think that I felt Witney was a very different place to Ashford, although obviously smaller. Both were market towns serving a rural area, Ashford had a railway industry and Witney had a woollen industry. The biggest difference was probably transport, because Ashford was a major rail junction and was big enough to have local bus services, whereas Witney had a single track rail service (known as the Fairford Flyer) and the bus services were all providing services to other places. Speech was different and it took a little while to get used to the broader dialect, but Ashford then had an East Kent dialect, a sort of cross between Cockney and East Anglia, so it was not too strange. With the B… family I had also to learn Yorkshire dialect as well. Having been an only child and perhaps over protected, I certainly enjoyed, and probably benefited from, greater freedom. As long as I appeared at mealtimes, came home at a reasonable hour and kept out of serious trouble, my time was my own. I was expected to write home at least weekly and my mother sent me half a crown a week, later five shillings, out of which I had to provide for some necessities, such as toothpaste. Most of my leisure time was spent out in the country on bikes or walking the dogs and for young boys there was a lot to see, with airfields and aircraft all over the place. There were at least half a dozen active R.A.F. stations within cycling distance.

The things I remember about Witney, in no particular order. First, its only real bombing raid, I think in the winter of1940. A plane, supposed to have been frustrated in reaching Coventry, was said to have seen lights on the Church Green, where soldiers were about, with some vehicles. One of the vehicles was burnt out, the Green suffered one or two minor holes and there was some damage in the brewery.

There was also an occasion when incendiary bombs were scattered in open country between Witney and Hailey. At this time Army vehicles were parked regularly under the trees on the Green and on the school drive. Later in the war the same thing happened with U.S. army vehicles and they also used the trees on the recreation ground behind the Church. Air raid warnings caused by planes attacking cities in the Midlands were near nightly events.

Because of my association with the F…… family and because we were often not at school on the morning (Witney used the buildings in the morning and we in the afternoon) I did a paper round for them. The newspapers were often late arriving from London, because of raids on London and occasionally didn't arrive at all. The 1940/41winter was a pretty cold one and the rural roads were shoulder high with drifted snow. I did a round that started where Bridge Street ended and finished on several farms near Hailey. Although I had a bike, on the later part of the round it was not of much use and occasionally I was hard put to get back in time to go to school.

Ashford School had a school O.T.C. unit, which because of war fever, recruited much below the age at which it was supposed to. We took part in an exercise with the local L.D.V. (later the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Guard) whilst we were there in which we were supposed to represent German parachutists dropped on the Warren and we were adjudged to have won the game easily because the L.D.V. were all wearing steel helmets, the hard outline of which stood out for some distance. One of the results was that they were all dispatched to the local shops to buy dishcloths to dye and use as camouflage nets. Luckily it was never necessary to find out if it was effective. There seemed to be never-ending fairs on the recreation ground, with P.A. systems that enveloped the entire town with the popular music of the day and the smell of Diesel oil. The senior boys played football against Witney schools, but I can't remember any other inter school sport. Because our school was split, our normal house matches were played in two series, one in Ashford and one in Witney. Because of small numbers, some boys of my age got into these teams years earlier than usual and I particularly remember this, because I made an early reputation by batting for quite long periods (about twenty minutes) for no runs in two matches, whilst older and better players won the games at the other end

After about a year, all but about 15 boys and 1 master had returned to Ashford and the remnants were merged into Witney Grammar School. I can recall only one other Ashford boy who remained, named 'Danny' D………. ( I think Denis, properly). He wore a leg iron, I think because of polio. He was billeted in Corn Street, I think with a lady named J……, whose dog we used to walk. We developed a firm friendship, because I managed to teach him to overcome his disability sufficiently to ride a bike. There was also a boy called John L……, who I understand is still around in Ashford, although I have not met him. He springs to mind because of an incident at the old swimming bath on the Windrush, which was really just a bit of the river with a diving board and part of the bank fenced off to contain some changing cubicles. It was supposed not to be used, because it was unattended and therefore dangerous, but we did swim there. An older Witney girl cut her leg quite badly on broken glass whilst diving in and we had collectively to organise assistance for her, by calling an ambulance.

My father had joined the army in 1941 and consequently my mother left the bank house and went to live with her mother on the outskirts of London. For this reason I stayed in Witney, whilst everyone else returned to Ashford, which was by the end of 1942 comparatively quiet. I did not leave until Christmas 1944, when the B…….. presumably felt they had done their bit. (They were paid, I believe 10/6d a week for their trouble). Because I did not return to Ashford until 1972 I have not kept in touch with other evacuees. I can remember a couple of people who were living with relatives around Witney as 'unofficial' evacuees. One, a girl called Isobel W……, lived at Barnard Gate with an elderly aunt and originated from Ealing. I believe she eventually worked for the B.B.C. in London. Another was a London Eastender called H….., who I think lived at Eynsham. Both of these were in my year at school.

My parents came to Witney only twice that I can recall. On the first occasion, a colleague of my father's brought them by car whilst visiting his own son. On the second occasion I think only my mother came, presumably because my father was in the army and she came by train. Quite illogically, by the end of 1942 I was allowed to go home for holidays and in the summer of 1944 I cycled down to a village near Devizes where an uncle was stationed in the Army and was living with his family in an estate gate lodge. My mother travelled there by train from London and we spent a couple of weeks there before she left hurriedly, because my father was going overseas. Presumably this arrangement was made because London was by then under attack by flying bombs.

I have no recollection of hostels, nor of the London School of Dramatic Art.

I recall, perhaps towards the end of 1943, the foundation of a youth club in Witney, with one of its prominent adult helpers a Miss E…. (Christine?). Apart from the common activities such as table tennis and billiards we had a drama group, which entertained the rest of the membership with an occasional one act play, produced by a lady whose father had a chemists shop in The Square, near the Corn Exchange. I recall, about 1942, a glider hitting the church steeple and knocking about 6 ft off the top of it. It subsequently crashed in the lane by Marriotts Mill and the crew were killed, I think.

Perhaps one of the things that was an outstanding difference between Ashford and Witney Grammar Schools was that whilst Ashford schools were (and some still are) single sex schools, Witney was co- educational. When I first arrived I was too young to be terribly interested, but Ashford boys were threatened with all sorts of terrible sanctions if they fraternised with Witney girls. I do not think it stopped some of the older boys and by the time we were integrated with Witney we had got used to the idea.

Michael D…..
Ashford, Kent

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