Description
Object description
British schoolchild evacuee in Hampshire and Berkshire, 1939-1944
Content description
REEL 1: Background in Portsmouth, 1932-1939: family. Aspects of period as evacuee in Hampshire, 1939-1940: evacuated to Sway, New Forest, 8-9/1939; memory of New Forest ponies; description of billet and living conditions; story of brother's punishment; period at grandmother's home; moved to Highclere, 9-10/1939; method of allocating billets; description of billet with Mr and Mrs Wooton; visit by parents; attendance at Sunday School; question of feeling rejected.
REEL 2 Continues: Recollections of period as evacuee in Berkshire, 1940-1944: moved to billet at Crux Easton, near Newbury; lived with Mr and Mrs Baker in gamekeeper's cottage on Lord Caernarvon's estate; listened to radio; memories of family's grandmother; post-war contact with Baker family; food and table manners; parcels sent by parents; duties helping gamekeeper.
REEL 3 Continues: further description of billet; discipline and punishments; table manners; washing and sanitary facilities; memory of grandmother smoking pipe; Christmas celebrations, 1940; church attendance; story of shooting accident; story of aircraft crashes; awareness of progress of war; relations with British and American troops; story of brother's accident with tank; petrol rationing; relations with conscientious objectors and Italian POWs; attitude to presence of Oswald Mosley in Crux Easton.
REEL 4 Continues: daily life in village; recreational activities including cinema; market work; story of pig at school; description of preparing pig's carcass; pocket money; opinion of education and teachers at village school; story of cow killed by aircraft; effect of evacuation on education; local accents; reading.
REEL 5 Continues: opinion of secondary school, 1943; opinion of conditions in hostel for evacuee children, Newbury, 1943; conditions in billet in Ecchinswell, Hampshire; moved to billet in cottage near Greenham Common airbase; memories of preparations for Normandy landings, 6/1944; sang in church choir; story of constructing hut; employment as beater on shoot. Aspects of period in Portsmouth, 1944-1945: returned to home in Portsmouth, 12/1944; story of parents' divorce. Post-war life and employment: problem of finding employment; apprenticeship; entered Army Apprenticeship's College, 2/1947. Reflections on period as evacuee.