The Holborn Hill Evacuee.

A Memory of Millom.

The view is looking over Holborn Hill towards Black Combe. Holborn Hill is old Millom, the new part of Millom was built when iron ore was discovered in 1855 at Hodbarrow and the iron works was built and Hodbarrow mines opened. It then became a prosperous town with a population rising to 10,000 people. My memory is of Holborn Hill and a five year old girl who was evacuated there at the beginning of the war. She arrived at Millom station from Dartford after having a rough time at an evacuee collection centre. She was taken to live with a family in Holborn Hill.   
The little girl was called Betty Sherwood and in later years, she was now married, had tried to trace her wartime family. She and her husband had travelled from Yorkshire, where she now lived, to Millom to find them. Unfortunately she could not remember many details of the house she stayed at or the family name only that she had had many happy years there. In 2008 I remember hearing about Betty on the internet and decided to accept the challenge. Three years earlier I had formed a FRIENDS OF MILLOM REUNION group for all my friends of the war years. A few of these friends and I searched for information from people of Betty's age and along with things Betty had remembered. All the information was logged on my computer. Betty had remembered that her wartime family were bakers and had a daughter her age with whom she became very good friends and who went to a private school. Lists of evacuee's to Millom were not kept, we were told by Millom and Whitehaven information offices. All we had found out about Betty's baker family did not fit in with what we knew about Millom bakers. Then Betty remembered that her wartime foster father had used a three wheeler van to deliver his bread and cakes. A friend of one of my team remembered that a baker not on my list had a shop on Holborn Hill. The baker family was John and Hettie Sowden and they had a daughter Jean who was about Betty's age. Yes, John used a three wheeler van to deliver his bread and cakes. John and Hettie had passed away and daughter Jean had married. Another stroke of luck came, somebody remembered that Jean had married Henry Rammage and they now lived on Holborn Hill opposite where the bakers shop used to be. The information was checked and we had found Betty's wartime family's daughter Jean and the shop where they all lived. I decided to break the news to Betty at our Reunion meeting, and invited Betty and her husband. I rang Jean and because she wasn't too well arranged to ring her from the meeting and put Betty on the other end of the phone.
At the Reunion I had seated Betty and her husband next to friends that were in on the plan, in case some awkward questions were asked. After the meal I explained to all present why Betty and Jim were here, and told some of the Betty story. Then turning to Betty and Jim, I explained how we had burnt the midnight oil to find her wartime family. I said they were John and Hettie Sowden and did run a bakery business on Holborn Hill, but both were now dead. I then announced, handing the phone to her, that her wartime friend Jean, the Sowden's daughter, was on the phone. The look on Betty's face was worth the searching, tears of joy were at both ends of the phone as they chatted on. They could not wait to meet and so within minutes Betty was taken to see Jean. Memories came flooding back as they talked at Jean's house. They remembered and laughed how Betty was heavy on her shoes and Hettie her wartime mum fitted her up with clogs and how Betty had accidently broken part of Jean's doll's tea set as they played. Many memories came out and they arranged to meet the following day to take some photographs. The shop is now a house but Betty remembered many things about it and the Holborn Hill area. Betty and Jean remember waiting at Millom station, at the top of the stone steps on the bridge. They were waiting for Betty's mum's train to arrive. She was coming to pick Betty up after the war had finished. On the phone after Reunion meeting I spoke to two very happy ladies who told me they would never forget this day. They were both presented with certificates by me on behalf of Millom Friends Reunited to remind them of their HOLBORN HILL story.