Evacuation To Combpyne

A Memory of Rousdon.

My sister Margaret and I (nee Rayner) were evacuated to the home and caring of a friend Olive Tuck who had a cottage next to a farm just out of Combpyne.  Across the fields where we were allowed to play, was the path to Landslip Cottage.  When mum and dad came to visit a special treat was to have afternoon tea at the cottage.  To this day I remember a pathway of bright orange nasturtiums,  the wooden tables and seats and the path (forbidden) to the beach which was festooned at that time with barbed wire.  I am sure we had afternoon tea but think the adventure made the visits more memorable.

Margaret attended school in the village so may figure on the roll for 1942/43.  We visited the farm to watch the cows being milked.  Unfortunately I contracted bovine TB and spent the next year in a convalescent establishment!!  We met snakes for the first time.

I remember going to the station to meet our parents and watching the steam train puffing its way through fields of wheat.  Being war time the roads were empty of traffic and we had freedom unheard of in this day and age.  On a windy day the wires would sing along the road.