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School was a very different place in those days and although I do not remember those particular school-rooms at Streatham, I entered similar ones almost every where I went on my way from one refuge to another, during the coming war.
Primary and Junior Schools were usually on the same site and indeed nearly always, were part of the same building and in most cases single storied. I remember long dark wood toped desks for two or three pupils with attached bench seats along one side, the desk top sloped down toward the pupils and at the top right hand side was a small round hole, where in more senior schools would be placed an ink well. That brings back memories of being made 鈥渋nk monitor鈥� for the week, I am not sure if that was as a prize for being good or a punishment for being naughty, certainly as you poured the blue ink from a large bottle there was every chance of at the very least of getting it on the fingers, if not your clothes. The class-rooms held something like 30 to 35 children and were nearly always about 15 metres x 15 metres in size, with high windows so you could not see out while at your desk. On the wall in front of you would be a large black board, I recall being told to go up to it and using one with faded yellow lines printed on it to help you draw or right on it, for me always a form of punishment, as I was naturally left handed and in those days most teachers would try to force me to change to my right hand. To be fair the teachers out in the country were I was evacuated, did not try to change me and so perhaps there was at least one advantage to it all. The desk would either have a lift up top or a shelf underneath to hold each pupil鈥檚 work or books, as once allocated this desk it would be your place of work and you would stay there through out that year,, unless you were bad when you would be moved to the front nearer the arm and eye of the teacher.
Visual aids for learning were few and far between although I remember big maps of the world hanging on the wall, in those days covered in red coloured areas denoting the countries of the British Empire. Invariably there would be a photograph of King George and Queen Elizabeth nearby, if not in each room, certainly in one. Behind the class would be a series of large full height folding glass and wooden doors and these could be pushed back against the wall, so that the two class rooms became one for assembly or indoor games.
I do not remember being told off too often, although if one did not obey a given order or instruction by a teacher immediately, it was not unusual to have a sharp tap across the knuckles from a 12 inch (300mm) ruler if the teacher was nearby or as in later years from a distance a well aimed missile such as a chalk or even a blackboard eraser, it certainly ensured that we kept our eyes and ears open most of the time.
So in those far off days at the ripe old age of 4, I would trundle up the Pinfold Road on my second-hand tricycle to those quite modern and to me large and impressive flats at the top of the road, where by chance I had discovered a musician who lived in the basement flat. Today many people would cry out at the thought, never mind the prospect of a child cycling his way up the road and entering a strange man's rooms, the crime, would be at least one of lack of parental responsibility. I have little doubt this secret haunt of mine was well-known to my mother, such was her constant attention and care for her precious offspring, I doubt if anything happened in those far off days that she was not aware of or didn't have a hand in. But back to my lovely man, he played the clarinet, I believe he was a member of one of the London Orchestras, I recall little of his room except it was downstairs through a side door, it could have been a front door off a side road for all I know, as this place cannot today be found, the only other thing I recall was sitting on a chair in his room listening to him as he played, in latter years although I knew him but briefly I was to remember him many times, but that is another story.

Little did I know of the clouds gathering in Europe but suddenly, just six days before my fifth birthday on the 3rd of September, my father and mother after much thought and with great strength of character, packed up a small bag of personal treasures and clothes for me, put a little box containing my gas mask over my shoulders, put a label on my coat much like Paddington Bear and took me down to the school for checking. From there we were marched to the nearby railway station, where with so many other children I rode away from all that I loved and cherished, away from my mother and father to goodness knows what or where. Somehow though, Streatham was already a long way away as we marched down the platform, there was kindness here, as we moved off, I do remember that good-bye, as in a dream, but my sight was soon restricted by the children clustered all around, excited yet lonely individuals on a railway station like so many parcels waiting for despatch. Suddenly we were moving, walking down between those long lines, at times quiet, sometimes calling rows of other peoples鈥� people, I cannot recall my mothers鈥� face there smiling, still among the crowd sadly watching me disappear, unseen to me as I walked away. Apparently as I went away from her she was very tempted to rush into the snaking moving row of children and retrieve me to herself.
Latterly I have wondered at their action and having heard of the terrible things that occurred to many Evacuees such as me, I can now fully realise what fear and anxiety must have enveloped them even before I left them; For when each of my two girls went off to Scout Camp for the first time I was worried stiff, so in war how much worse must it have been for my parents, as I was only five and going somewhere goodness knows where, to live with goodness knows who, perhaps never to be seen again.
Undoubtedly it was to be, for some a tragic adventure, for others journeying together into the country it meant survival. Undoubtedly for our parents, who had been given the options of keeping their children at home in London, with the dreadful certainty that what had happened in Spain, during their recent Civil War, in the first real example of aerial attack and devastating bombing with the carnage among the civilians, would almost certainly be repeated here, there was an awful decision to make. To let go or risk the total loss of whole families, so it was many went into the country and others to foreign parts both in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States of America, many to lose their lives through enemy action against the ships they were in, others to a final loneliness and a life of cruelty and deprivation as virtual slaves.

Even today, every time I see the films of evacuee children getting onto trains that fine September day in 1939, I want to cry, for although as a family we came through eventually, that was the time, the change, in my world forever and of course the world of everybody else at the same time.
At first there was what they called the phoney war, when Hitler strutted around Europe ranting and raving about the futility of the allies position. The Germans had entered Czechoslovakia and it had been quickly overrun and had fallen. Britain in support of a promise to Poland, joined and supported France, who also had declared war on the Germans. So it was in what became known as the Phoney war, that nothing happened, except that we sent in the British Expeditionary Force consisting of our small Regular Army together with our even smaller Territorial Army to support the French. Having studied history since, it is quite obvious that when it was almost too late, though for some time we had been busily rearming having brought some extra time at the expense of the Czechs and latterly to some extent the Poles, when following a meeting between Ramsey MacDonald our Prime Minister at the time and Hitler the German Nazi leader, at Munich. Our Prime Minister returned waving a piece of paper promising 鈥淧eace in our time鈥�. However it was not too soon after that the Nazis swept into Poland overcoming that country鈥檚 brave but poorly armed and prepared army, they having previously arranged with Stalin鈥檚 Russia to divide the country between them.

So I went out to the country near Bracknell, where I was billeted with a strange family living in a cottage close by a small railway halt, a feature which disappeared during the Beeching days of Railway reform during the 1950's, many children had wonderful homes to go to, others were mistreated and abused and apparently misused. For me life was rougher than I had known, but I think not too hard. I cannot remember how I came to be allocated to the family I stayed with during those early months of the war, I cannot recall much about them except there was at least one other child already in the family, but the place I can and many years ago in fact found it, some what changed and of course smaller than I remembered The row of three cottages was still there, no Railway Halt there now, but with other houses near-by that I did not recall, I am glad to say it was viewed without any feelings.

I remember at least that the weather was fine and warm that autumn and my mother coming down to the visit me and in particular for some reason having my socks changed while sitting outside on the little front garden wall, in the street. She had come down by train to the Halt. In latter years she described her absolute horror when she first saw me again.
Apparently my chubby cheerful face had gone, my golden curly hair had been shorn away in a crew cut fashion, probably because of the fear of lice or fleas. My host parents may have thought, having heard all the stories about the East End children and their problems, that any child from London would be the same; Perhaps they were even advised to do so by the authorities as a precaution! On this particular visit she saw my clothes were dirty and that I had fallen at some time in the roadway and my knee still had some of the gravel in the wound, yet still she had to treat me as I sat on the wall, although we had nowhere to go, she was not allowed in the house at all, then or on subsequent visits to that little halt. In later years my mother described to me her shock on seeing me that time, that she had cried over what had happened to her little laughing boy. My carers never offered her a cup of tea after her long journeys down from London. Now I can well imagine the fear and the doubt in her mind of the correctness in sending her only child away.
Under these conditions it is no surprise that I was brought back to Streatham for a short time, but only to be sent away to Banbury where my mother's childhood friend Cis Cox and her daughter Hazel were safely ensconced in a farmhouse which I recall lay back from the main road in lonely isolation, some half a mile up a long hill in open countryside.

This move must have coincided with the beginning of the war proper. Before I went to Banbury, I recall going down with my mum to Brixton which was then the main shopping area for Streatham. As we walked under the railway bridges I recall looking up at what appeared to me to be an endless procession of railway trains and carriages. The carriages were packed with cheering and shouting soldiers waving their arms at anyone who would see them. These were the remains of the Expeditionary Army coming back from Dunkirk. No wonder they were shouting and excited they had it transpired, been plucked from certain death or imprisonment by the efforts of the Royal Navy and thousands of little ships and the sheer dedication of so many people. Bill Place, my cousin by marriage to Barbara Oldham, the daughter of my father鈥檚 eldest sister Em, could easily have been one of those tired but lucky men.He was an lieutenant in the Terrritorials and came away from France on board the Lancastrian Liner, which was sunk by enemy action. He was rescued and transferred to a British destroyer, which was also badly damaged. Once he got back to the UK he was posted to Burma and spent the rest of the war out there. We were only to find out later what a miracle it had been and at what cost in men and materials, the loss of the Lancastrian was not known by the public until after the war. So off to Banbury.
Life was happy and comfortable with Auntie Cis there .I seem to remember the weather was still quite nice and out in the country at first there was little to hint of the traumours unfolding in London, not that I would have been told of them anyway. I seem to remember that food was reasonably available in the country unlike the towns and cities where stricter food rationing was soon applied.

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