Life At Southborough As An Evacuee In 1939

A Memory of Southborough.

I was sent to Southborough from London in September 1939 and was billeted with a lovely couple, Mr and Mrs Brown who lived at Holden Corner. I was with another girl evacuee named Audrey and she and l just loved the chickens and fishing (with jam jars) in the pond. We went to the village school, bought Tizer and ice-cream from the shop, and I seem to remember going to the church there, too. Thanks to the Browns' kindness my memories of Southborough are most happy. Several of us used to try and make 'dens' in the bushes on the common on our way home from school. I well remember Audrey getting a letter from her mum saying that she had had to put their cat to sleep in case it got hurt by bombs and we both sat in bed and cried, me because I had 2 cats and I feared  that they would suffer the same fate! Sadly when my home in Blackheath got bombed in September 1940, l was to lose both home AND cats - but l didn't know that, then. By the way, my name then was Gooding.