Tag Archives: Portsmouth

Betty Coates-Evans: WWII Evacuees 1940s

We had a Morrison shelter in the living room. I liked it, it was good fun to make a den and play in.
My mother was in the WRVS and we had a spare room so we took in evacuees – a mother and daughter about my age, from Plymouth. The father was in the Navy, on convoys,  and used to call in when his ship docked in Portsmouth. Sadly, he didn’t return from the final convoy. When the mother and daughter went back to Plymouth, blankets and my mother’s prized cottage china tea set disappeared with them. Betty Coates Evans nee Lock b 1938

 

Pauline Harwood : WWII evacuees 1940s

Evacuee figures

Evacuee figures

When the evacuees came, I remember they swarmed into school. My mother had to take 2 or 3 in overnight – head to tail in the bed.  One boy called Bernard White, stayed. We didn’t like him, but mother did – he had ginger hair, same as Jack used to.   They came from Milton Road, Portsmouth. He was a big daredevil boy who used to go beachcombing, I mean beachcombing in the war time! He used to bring home all sorts of things.  Eventually he went back and when we heard from him last he was quite high up in the Navy. He had done well for himself, but we didn’t like him. Pauline Harwood nee Hatch b 1928

 

Effie Pitman: WWII work 1939, 1940s

Of course when war broke out Mr. Gobini had to go because he was Italian.
I was with the A.R.P. in the evenings in the Town Hall, taking telephone messages with Eileen Smith. We had to phone in to Newport when there was an air raid.
It was so dark at night with no lights, I hated it.
Then in the morning the bus came for us at a quarter to 7 so we didn’t always get much sleep.
I was sent to Cowes to work in the shipyard, riveting. It was horrible!  My face used to be black when I got home. Some of the other girls weren’t very nice, their language….
Once I was put with a man who was on piece work. We had to work so fast! Another time a man came to see us to ask us to rivet a flag pole. We said ‘We cant do it!’ but we did, over 700 rivets , and you had to be so careful otherwise it bent.
My aunt had some evacuees to stay with her.  Poor little mites. They must have been so unhappy away from home. Effie Pitman b 1920

Evacuee numbers at Yarmouth School

‘Unofficial’  and ‘Official’ Evacuee numbers at Yarmouth School