An evacuee  from Hull by DENNIS STAFF

I WAS A FRIGHTENED lad in those early days of World War II, living in Hull and attending Estcourt Street School. Hull is on the Humber, an east coast port that was particularly vulnerable to enemy air raids which occurred frequently and so under the government's evacuation scheme, it was announced one day that hundreds of children would be leaving their folk behind and moving south to live with families in safer areas where there would be no bombs every night and our classmates would not be getting killed. 

My sweetheart of the time had just been bombed out and had died in the Hull Infirmary. My granny would come and collect me every day after school and she always found me crying by the crater where their house once stood. It attracted me like a magnet. I was glad that I was going somewhere safe where the Germans could not get my brothers or me. My mother was staying behind to work in a factory making munitions and my father was already serving with the army overseas. 

We assembled at the school in Craven Street and were loaded on to buses that took us to the ferry in Hull where we crossed the River Humber. This was my first ride on a ship and I always remember to this day the large number of naval ratings there were aboard those ferries. This of course was because of the huge number of children, a safeguard should something happen. I could also see some smaller naval vessels with sailors escorting us. Upon reaching the Lincolnshire side we got into the trains awaiting us. One of our escorts was a Miss Collinson who had been my teacher and she was in my carriage and we had sandwiches and lemonade on the trip and eventually we arrived at a place called Essendine where we changed trains for the final leg of the journey into Bourne. 

How well I remember being walked down the streets in the middle of this crowd of kids, paraded past each house, as occupants shouted " I'll take a girl" or " I have room for two". I huddled close to my kid brother Gordon who was only five years old while my older brother Norman was hanging back. It was a time of wonder and of apprehension. As the flock thinned out we turned the corner on Burghley Street and eventually came to number 42 where a motherly figure looked over the left-overs and, having made eye contact, she announced: "I think I might like to have that little gentleman there." 

She pointed at me with a very warm smile. I asked if my brother could come with me but it was not possible and after some persuasion, I agreed to part and we both cried, but fortunately he ended up just a short distance away. The lady who had claimed me was Mrs. Lilian Grummitt and her husband Ernest who worked just down the road at Wherry's grain and feed company. Their only son Maurice had just left home and joined the Royal Navy and so I had his room while he was away. They also had a dog called Floss, which I took for walks every day. 

No 42 Burghley Street is centre left, next to the passageway

Every spring, house martins nested under the eaves of the house and swallows swooped low over the rooftop and I played many an hour in the passageway with a tennis ball and bouncing pennies out of a circle against the wall. These were certainly the happiest days of my childhood, even learning to play on the Grummitt piano with one finger, which launched me into a love of music that is with me today. I still can't read music and continue to play by ear but I can keep going non-stop for two or three hours, which I do, playing golden oldies with my Lions Club around the nursing homes and seniors residences. 

Another name that comes to mind is a Mr Jarrett, or perhaps it was Garrett, who was a schoolteacher. I was quite a good dancer of eightsome reels and gave some demonstrations at the Corn Exchange for the other kids and a girl called Joan Greatorix was my partner. Troops were billeted all over Bourne in those wartime days and Mrs Grummitt used to invite some of them round for tea. They soon found that I could sing like Popeye the Sailor, a favourite film cartoon character of the time, and would get me to perform for them. One night they were putting on a concert at the Corn Exchange and arranged for me to do my stuff. Some of the shows that were staged in the Corn Exchange at Bourne and at nearby Grantham were fabulous and the visiting stars included Ralph Reader, Jimmy Edwards and Tommy Handley. I am sure someone must have saved some old posters from these very entertaining events. 

One of the soldiers was called Stan who became a particular pal, playing street cricket with us and lifting us to sit on his shoulders to watch the tennis at the courts down the street. Just around the corner were Moody's tomato greenhouses and we once bet him that he couldn't throw a stone over them, which he did, only to hear the crash of glass because there were rows and rows behind the first one. Everyone new to the neighbourhood was always caught out by this little trick. 

The town must have changed since those days. Outside the Tudor Cinema were massive concrete barriers on either side of the road and slots in the ground where they erected large steel girders that were intended to stop any invaders coming through. Men from the Airborne Regiment were stationed here and they had a guard post in Wherry's Lane at night and when we walked down that lane after dark the sentries would challenge us with: "Halt! Who goes there? Friend or foe?" and when we replied they would say "Advance friend and be recognized." We would then show our identity cards which we had to carry at all times, as well as the small brown cardboard box on a string that contained our gas-mask. There were no street lights and everyone needed a torch to get around after dark. 

Bourne was so very much involved in the wartime effort and there was a German prisoner-of-war camp in the vicinity, just north of the main road going west. We were not supposed to but we used to fraternise with the inmates, particularly when they had outings to the swimming pool. One even repaired my life ring, which I was using to learn to swim with, but it sprang a leak. He took it away and brought it back repaired. They seemed very nice fellows. 

When I look back at those days, I realise just how much the influence from this family in Burghley Street formulated my whole outlook on life and many of the values they taught me are the make-up of my character. Miss Dent, the head teacher at the school gave me confidence in myself, telling me that there was nothing standing in the way of what I wanted to be and that I would aspire to great things. Her predictions were correct. I had a successful career as a naval intelligence officer, later seconded to NATO and it was she who came to mind when I worked for the Canadian government on the Space Shuttle and when I successfully helped my friend Joe Clark become Prime Minister of Canada in 1979. 

I believe that Miss Collinson married a local man and may still live in Bourne. If so, she would remember me as the kid who refused to be demoted to Will Scarlett in the school play because I had played the leading role of Robin Hood the previous year in our own production back in Hull. 

I would like to finish on a happy note by thanking the people of Bourne who gave refuge to us evacuees in time of peril by opening their homes and giving us a comforting place to live. I particularly remember the kindness and generosity shown to my brothers and me and for the wonderful start in life they gave one kid from the slums of Hull and who went on to make a great life in Canada. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. 

NOTE: Dennis Alan Staff died at Cumberland, Ottawa, Canada, on 25th February 2015, aged 82.

See also Fishing and Wishing