lwright

Published at 00:00, Friday, 16 March 2007

By LYNDSEY WRIGHT

LEAVING home and stepping out into the big wide world is, at the best of times, nerve-wracking.

So imagine being aged just six and, with nothing but a few personal possessions and a gas mask, leaving behind your loving parents and cosy family home.

Along with classmates, evacuees in the Second World War were ushered on to a crowded train and taken into the wilderness to live with strangers; which would become their homes for the next few years.

In September 1939 thousands of children were brought to Tynedale from their homes in Newcastle and Gateshead, away from areas of potential bombing and into relative safety.

Altogether about one fifth of the country’s schoolchildren were moved – one of the greatest logistical exercises of all time.

Around 28,300 children from Newcastle and 10,598 from Gateshead were evacuated to the countryside.

On September 1, 1939, with war imminent, the first children from Newcastle arrived in Hexham just after 10.30am, quickly followed on September 2 by thousands more.

In total Tynedale played host to almost 4,500 evacuees in Hexham, Allendale, Haltwhistle, Bellingham, Wylam, Ovingham, Haydon Bridge and Alston, with many staying at remote farms and villages, welcomed with open arms by local people.

The Courant reported on the evacuation in its September 2 edition, quoting the Government as saying the evacuation scheme “was as a precautionary measure and did not mean war was inevitable” – despite declaring war the following day.

On September 9 it reported a “general feeling of hospitality” from local Tynedale people towards the evacuees, with one host mother saying: “It is of the children we must think and not ourselves.

“We are comparatively comfortable, but these young children have left home, friends, everything. I, at any rate, am willing to do my share to ease their burden.”

The contrast of town and country was quickly apparent, with two ’Shire evacuees trawling the area for a sweet shop – but, of course, they were left disappointed.

One ’Shire evacuee was Ken Dodd, who now lives in St Wilfrid's Road, Hexham.

He was aged just five and living in Walkergate, Newcastle, when he was evacuated to a family-owned farm deep in Hexhamshire.

He said: “My parents, William and Margaret, owned Longlee Farm but we never lived there; it was tenanted.

“We had been there for a short holiday and had just arrived back at Walkergate when war was declared and my parents literally turned around and brought me and my brother, Michael, then two, straight back.

“It was odd because they left us there with the tenants. But it was one great big adventure and from then on it became our home.

“I think that we were quite lucky in that we were familiar with the farm, whereas many evacuees were living in places they had never even heard of before.”

Ken started school at Lilswood – a one-classroom school at the top of the ’Shire.

“We had to cross the road to go to the toilets and the classroom was just one room,” says Ken.

“We were expecting many more evacuees in the ’Shire so the council built a new wooden school with two classrooms just down the road from Lilswood.

“After a few months I moved to the new school but that great surge of evacuees never materialised.

“It did get quite crowded on the farm because we had a land army girl there helping out and another evacuee for a time, as well as a German prisoner who was brought there each morning and taken away at night. But we just got on with it.”

A few years later, when he was nine, Ken got fed-up with his life in the countryside and made an escape back to Walkergate to see his parents.

“I caught the bus to Hexham and then the train to Newcastle, and then I ran out of money. I can remember asking an RAF man for money to get to Walkergate.

“And I remember the look on my mother’s face when I arrived at the door. I spent the night in the air raid shelter in the garden, and was taken back to Longlee the next day.”

Ironically, Ken ended up farming at Longlee for 25 years before making his home in Hexham.

“It was quite hard at the time but I think I quite enjoyed life on the farm – I must have done to stay there for 25 years!”

In Hexham, once all of the evacuees had spent their first week in Tynedale, they started school.

At Hexham Junior and Infant School, now Sele First School, pupils from Cowgate Senior School attended on a time-share basis, with the evacuated school attending in the afternoon and Sele pupils in the morning.

Neil Peacock’s father, James, was head teacher at Cowgate at the time of the evacuation.

Neil was aged seven and a pupil at Cragside Junior School – living with his family at High Heaton – when the war broke out.

“Around August 1939 we went on our annual holiday and instead of going home we went straight to Ridsdale,” said Neil.

“As you can imagine, it was a huge change to what we were used to.

“I attended a tiny school in Ridsdale as a youngster, which has long since disappeared.

“We lived at a tiny cottage with no electricity or running water – we had to go to the village pant for water.”

The cottage was owned by Neil’s aunt, Elizabeth Dixon, the sister of his mum Hilda.

Neil, his mum and cousin Daphne Paterson all lived in the cottage, with dad James visiting at weekends, as he was still based in the city.

Neil’s twin brothers, who were five years older than him, were students at Newcastle Royal Grammar School and had been evacuated to Penrith.

After a couple of months, the family moved from Ridsdale to Dilston Avenue, Hexham, to live with Neil’s grandparents on his mother’s side.

“My dad and his school had been evacuated to Hexham, so we all lived together in my grandparents’ house,” he said.

“It was just the way life was and I never stopped to think about it as a child.

“I lived in Hexham for two years and it became my home. I remember going back to my real home only once, so my parents could check everything was okay.”

Once in Hexham, Neil attended the Sele school, which had air raid shelters in the play yard.

Neil, who is 75 and retired, now lives at Hazlerigg.

He added: “As a boy in those days the war was always just one great big adventure. I know it was hard for evacuees who had to live with strangers, but it really was just a way of life.”

Published by http://www.hexhamcourant.co.uk