Evacuees

A Memory of Mansfield Woodhouse.

My brother and I were evacuated to Mansfield Woodhouse in 1940 from Southend. We came with our school, London Road Primary School, and some of our teachers including the wonderful Miss Whisker.
We lived with various families - the Cookes at Sunnydale Poultry Farm, the Marchants at 6, Coke Street, the Owens in Tennyson Avenue and the Colliers in Stainforth Street. All organised by the redoubtable Mr. Hudson
I went to the National School and my brother to Oxclose Lane School. I remember walking along the long lane from Sunnydale to school and later along 'Bedstead Alley' to Oxclose Lane School.
Our memories are very vivid - and not altogether happy. Our mother joined us in 1940 and was soon taken to Ransom Sanatorium where, eventually, in 1942, she died. Our grandparents also came to MW but they fairly shortly after returned to London. Our father, who was working on munitions elsewhere visited us once or twice while we were there.
At Christmas 1941 we returned to London.
Amongst my memories are the miners with blackened faces, sometimes sitting on their hunkers playing some sort of game; many hours outside Bullock's pub hoping for the odd glass of Shandy; the Fair with its rocking boats; fish & chips from a shop in Coke Street and also getting the 'balm' for bread making from another shop close by. New words like 'mardy' and 'nesh' - frequently applied to us (to say nothing of 'flat-arsed'!). Discovering that nettles would sting. Collecting milk in a pancheon (another new word, lie balm) from the farm. The continuous rumble of the overhead buckets of slag as they moved slowly over the town, the heaps of coal outside the miners' houses which had to be wheeled into the back. Queueing for cakes from a shop near the Tivoli. Trips to the Tivoli - on Sat. mornings and in the evenings -'Will yer tak' me in, mister?' - and sitting through several repeats of the same film until 'This is where we came in'. Haymaking with a horse & cart and helpung with the haystack. The threshing machine in the lane. Confusion over being 'starved' when it meant 'cold' not 'hungry'. Gathering eggs from under warm chickens. And much, much more.