Evacuation: Evacuee 4 Phyl Jones

Cloze Procedure

Choose from the following words to fill in the gaps below on Activity Sheet 14: generous, books, Captain, stripes, Privates, soldiers, bunting, tank, shilling, children, halfpennies, thousand

‘We were always being encouraged to raise money for our ‘fighting forces’ and special fund raising days were organised. Shopkeepers would hang out ............................ and various competitions were held including trying to form a ‘mile of pennies ‘down the main street. Our eyes boggled when as we laid our pennies and ........................, we saw forms and half crowns, and even an occasional ten ......................... note tucked under a coin! We wondered who could afford to be so .................... On one occasion some of the ..................... brought a .................. and a bren gun carrier down into the town and for a penny we ..................... were allowed to climb on them and sit inside. Another scheme was collecting ...................... and magazines - I’m not sure if this was for the waste paper or if they were distributed to the troops. The schoolchildren were given a designated area to collect from. We all started off as .............................. When we had collected one hundred books we were made up to ‘Sergeants’ and given paper ............................ to wear. Two hundred books made us a ....................., five hundred made us Generals and one ............................... the much coveted rank of Field Marshal’.

Reforming Text

Now that you have read Phyl's biography and memories carefully, fill in the labels on Activity Sheet 13. The topics are:

• My Journey to My New Home
• How We Lived
• What We Ate
• My School
• Happy Experiences
• Sad Experiences
• Contact With My Parents
• Coming Back Home

This is a photograph of Phyl taken whilst she was evacuated. Enlarge the photograph

The children found life very different in Lyme Regis. Aunt Min was very strict and they missed their parents very much. They were sent to the local school but found the pupils there had no time for evacuees and often made fun of them.

Phyl’s brother left Lyme Regis after passing his Scholarship (the 11+ Exam) as no grammar school places were awarded to evacuees. He returned to London but had to be evacuated again during the Blitz.

Living near the seaside and in the country did have advantages. At weekends Phyl went for long walks with Aunt Min who taught her all about nature and the names of all the wild flowers and birds they saw.

When the War ended in 1945, Phyl could not return home as her parents had taken in lodgers - people who had been bombed out of their homes. In August she finally came home and found the house had been not been touched by the bombs, though a landmine had fallen and demolished some local buildings.

Photograph Comprehension - What does the photograph tell you? Think about:

Her expression - Her clothes - Her body language - Her age
Anything you might be able to see in the background

On Activity Sheet 12 write about "When I look at the photograph of Phyl Jones, I think..."

Phyl Jones was six years old when the Second World War began. She lived in Stratford, East London with her parents and her older sister and brother.

Phyl’s father came from Lyme Regis in Dorset and his mother and his sister, Min, still lived there and they wrote to the family offering a home for the children. This seemed a much better idea than joining the state evacuation scheme and sending the children to live with strangers, so Phyl became a ‘private evacuee'.

Just before she was evacuated, Phyl can remember going to school, one evening, to be fitted with her gas mask. Later, she watched her father and their neighbour digging a huge hole in the end of their gardens and then they erected an Anderson Shelter, made of corrugated iron, fixed firmly in the hole.

On September 3rd, 1939, the family was startled by the air raid siren and hurried into the Anderson Shelter. This was to be Phyl’s only trip to the shelter as that evening the children were told they would be going on a short ‘holiday’, to stay with their Grandma and Aunt Min. It would only be for a few weeks and they would surely be home for Christmas!

The next morning, Phyl’s mother took the three children to Waterloo Station and asked the guard to ‘keep an eye on them’. It was only then that Phyl realised her mother was not coming too, and cried and cried.

Aunt Min was waiting for them at Axminster station and they caught another train to Lyme Regis before a taxi took them to their new home.