Sorting out the Evacuees at Goring-by-sea, Maureen Blakey’s Memories of an Evacuee 3

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Rachel Conway from Brighton and has been added to the website on behalf of Maureen Blakey (nee Goodyer) with her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

I was evacuated in 1939 with my sister, Honor when I was six from Tooting in London to Goring-by-Sea in Sussex. On arrival we were met by a very official body of people. I later found out these were ‘billeting officers’ who found you your new home, along with Nuns, local teachers and other volunteers with cars to take you to your new home. We were first lead from the station in crocodile fashion to a hall behind the station where people were there to ‘collect their evacuee’. It was a strange experience on reflection, a bit like a cattle market, you heard “I’ll take that one” or “those two over there”. Brothers and sisters were split up, sent to different families and told ‘you’ll see each other at school!’. Finally the hall was almost empty, just a few grown ups and Honor and myself left — “good” I thought “now we can go home to Tooting”. The hall is still there when I saw it recently the memories came flooding back and so did the tears.

Then a lady came charging across and said “follow me”. Outside there was a black car waiting, we both got in it with the lady and taken to what was to be our new home. The front door opened and the ‘billeting officer’ said “I’ve brought you evacuees from London”. The little lady who opened the door said “I wanted boys!” All this time Honor had kept quiet, when suddenly she said “Well you have got two girls and if you don’t want us that’s okay by me, because we have had quite enough for one day and I’m ready to go back to where we belong!” The billeting officer said “Oh no, that isn’t possible”. The little lady than said, “Come inside, you must be tired, you can stay the night and we will sort things out in the morning”.

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