"We left London in 1939 and we never went back to London again, not that we had a home to go back to: it had been bombed to the ground."
VE Day Recollections of Doreen Doe (nee Hodgson):
“I spent 4 and 1/2 years between 1939 and 1944 in Oxfordshire as an evacuee from the East End of London. When I was 14 years old, I returned to London to find work.
I remember when it was announced that the war was over, the celebrations went on for weeks. Every street in the East End of London had a big bonfire and we walked miles dancing and singing at every one. The East End was one big party for weeks on end. Men played accordions in the street and if families had a piano they were brought out onto the street. What a celebration it was: everyone laughing and crying at the same time. There will never be anything like it again.
I am 94 now but I remember those days as is they were yesterday. It should never be forgotten.
I am enclosing an article which appeared in the magazine in 1989 in the village to which I was evacuated. I hope it would be of interest.”
Typed by her neighbour Ian Willett.
Transcript:
The story of an evacuee
Doreen Hodgson, now Doe was 9 when she came with her 11 year old brother from London. She came back to visit Kirtlington with her husband in 1982 and has been back regularly since.
The years I spent in Kirtlington as an evacuee are among the happiest memories. My father brought my brother and me down to Kirtlington and left us in the care of Mr Bennett senior, vicar at that time. Our school from the East End of London had arrived three weeks earlier so by the time we arrived all official billets were occupied.
We were taken to stay with a Mr and Mrs Bartlett, a very strict Edwardian couple for two very frightened and lonely children. It was terrifying. We were made to live apart from them and never to enter their living quarters. There was a curtain dividing us from them.
After two weeks we were moved to Mr and Mrs Scarrott of North Lodge. Although they were well over the age limit they agreed to have us for a while. They became a much loved Gran and Gramp to us and we stayed with them for the rest of the war. They gave us lots of happiness and I think I can say we gave them happiness too, not to mention a few grey hairs. Gramp took my brother on his rounds of the spinneys, shooting and repairing the walls round the Budgett estate. In the winter the spinneys and trees round the lodge had no electricity or running water. We would have to thaw the pump outside before we could wash. The toilet was 100 yards down the garden where both of us if we so wanted could sit side by side. When it was very dark we would both go down with a torch, One would stand outside. The shapes and shadows that came out of those spinneys made us run back to the house as quick as our feet would carry us.
With no TV we made our own entertainment To a bunch of East End kids, Kirtlington with its fields full of cowslips, trees and animals was wonderful. We went to school in the old Village Hall at first, then later to the main school in the village where Mr George Ward was headmaster. What a kind and understanding man he was. I still to this day have my school leaving certificate.
We used to watch [unclear - name] bring his cows down from Mill Road for milking. Then they would all graze on the Green, we used to walk among them and stroke them. In winter when the [unclear] on the village and lake at the back of the Big House were frozen we would spend hours skating on them. [Unclear] until it was dark, London and country children together. It was a great life. What we enjoyed most was swimming in the canal. On our way we would pass Mr Brackley's shop. He used to store his sacks of potatoes in the garage, so on passing we would borrow half a dozen big ones then go down the quarry, slide down the bank to the canal. We would gather wood and build a big bonfire, put the potatoes on the fire. While they were cooking, we would swim in the canal then sit on the bank while the barges went by, horse drawn in those days. When the potatoes were ready, we would all sit round the fire and eat them. I don't think I've tasted anything nicer since. Then on the edge of the quarry was the shell of an old house that to us was haunted. In these days we could play all day there and in the fields without fear of anything or anyone. What a pity children can't do that today. Gran used to like us to go to church twice on Sundays. I used to work the air for the organ. I thought I was very important, and my brother was a choir boy.
We left London in 1939 and we never went back to London again, not that we had a home to go back to: it had been bombed to the ground.
I can't explain the feeling I had when I came back to the village after forty years and saw friends I had been to school wth. It was like going back in time. Things had hardly changed. Kirlington will always hold a special place in my heart. The kindness of the villagers made leaving our own homes and parents a little easier. It's a pity we can't all get together again for a reunion. During the war all the world suffered heartbreak and sorrow. For me it was leaving my mother and father. My mother died while I was in Kirtlington. I will always be very grateful to the generations of the villagers during the war years for making those years so happy.
[One of Doreen's friends remembers those days)
The London children settled in quite quickly. The only thing that annoyed us was that Mrs Brackley used to save all the sweets to give to them - there was never any for us! And they quickly accepted the 'friendly feud' between Kirtlington and Bletchingdon. We had Kirtlington evacuees versus Bletchingdon evacuees. They knew different games and songs from ours, so we learned some things from them as well.
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