Wartime

A Memory of Hilton.

I was evacuated to Hilton with my mother and grandmother at the outbreak of the WW2. My father was drafted into the army and was sent off to India and Burma when Japan entered the war. We lived in a terraced cottage in Eggington Road. The families next door were the Radleys and the Lands. Opposite the row of houses was the American army camp and my friends and I spent time waving and talking to the soldiers who gave us biscuits an chewing gum.
I started at Hilton school when I was five and stayed there until the end of the war in 1945. On both VE day and VJ day there were enormous bonfires lit in the road opposite the Talbot pub. There were so big that they melted the road.
During the time I spent in Hilton I remember going each morning to collect the milk from the farm . We also had to take the battery for the radio to be charged up at the garage on ghe corner of Eggington Road.
We had no heating apart fom a wood fire and no running water. The only available water was got from a pump in the back garden. I remember the postmistress was Miss Tunnicliffe but I can't remember the names of any other shopkeepers. I am still in touch with Eileen Land who still lives in the same house. Anyone who remembers my family please leave a message.

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