Evacuated To Menheniot (August 1944)

A Memory of Menheniot.

My mother Eileen Lambert (nee Carter) was evacuated to Menheniot in August 1944. Here are her meories of that time:-

In August 1944, when it looked as though the Germans would soon be defeated, an evacuation plan was put into action because of the threat of V2 rockets. At the time, my school (Catford Central School) was billeted in Smarden (Kent) but, previous to that, I had been with my junior school (Marvels Lane School, Grove Park, London SE12) which had been evacuated to Quethiock in June 1940. This time, we were only told that we would be going to Cornwall. Most of us were devastated. Hitler was getting desperate, everyone thought the war would soon be over and we were looking forward to going home – and then this! Our regular trips home to London for holidays would all stop now. It felt like we were going to the other end of the country. My friend Jean Overton told me recently she wasn’t upset. She thinks she didn’t realise at the time where Cornwall was!

To my utter amazement our destination was to be Menheniot, only two miles away from Quethiock where my brother Ian Carter was still living. Our hosts George Cowling and his wife knew the Wenmoth family (tenants of Great West Farm in Quethiock where I had stayed before) very well. George preached in their chapel. Jean Overton and I would sometimes walk over to the farm. The people of Menheniot gave us all a great welcome – they were probably glad of a bit of excitement in their lives at that stage of the war, and we soon settled in.

Schooling accommodation in Menheniot was very limited. Only the British Legion Hall was available but we were very happy in the village and particularly enjoyed the Saturday night dances held in the same hall. These were attended by the local lads and lasses and some soldiers camped in the surrounding area. The dances were the one social event of the week and we were well chaperoned by our hosts and hostesses. To show our appreciation of the kindness of the village people, our English teacher decided we would perform "A Midsummer Night’s Dream", which we had produced in Smarden (Kent) before we left. We played to a packed audience in the British Legion Hall and a good time was had by all.


Unfortunately, our headmistress was not happy with the conditions under which we were studying and plans were made for us to go to St. Stephen-in-Brannel near St. Austell. Here a larger church building was available and within a matter of months we were on the road again. We were very sad to be leaving Menheniot and felt the building that subsequently became our school was only marginally superior to the one we had in Menheniot.

Our headmistress nearly had a breakdown and was, in fact, quite ill with struggling round on a bicycle trying to get accommodation for us. Sadly, the locals in St. Stephen were not as willing to receive us as the people of Menheniot had been.

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