Evacuate the Children

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"Once the bombings started seriously—and that was in June of 1940—that’s when the government said, 'you should evacuate your children.' And most families complied. There were a, well a few wealthier families went away to—as a family unit. But for the government sponsored evacuation, only the kids went. Parents could not go on under that program. So that’s when my school was evacuated. And so I went to Gloucestershire to a little town near the—a little village—near the town of Cirencester. And the town was called Ampney Crucis.

Well, in the end, we wound up going to an estate of a wealthy man. Who turned out—I found out later, much later in life—had been in the oil industry, and worked for the company that became BP.

There were six boys. And he didn’t let us, he didn’t open up his big home. And he had a big home on that estate ‘cause it was also a working farm.

And we were put into a room above the stables. We didn’t sleep in the stables. We were in a room above the stables, which he had decorated, you know, prepared a bit decently, I think. And he provided six beds."