Charles Sammonds Charles died on Saturday January 14 th 2006 His passing was peaceful. He will be missed.

Charles J Sammonds  and    THE WAR THAT WASN’T (more CLICK here)

On September lst, 1939, I, together with a good number of boys from a section of Battersea Central School, were evacuated to the Hawkley, Empshott, Greatham, Newton Valence and Liss areas. The other two thirds of the school were sent to another location at Rowlands Castle. My younger brother and I were taken to Hawkley School and then conveyed by private car (private car! none of our families had ever dreamed of owning a car) to Empshott Green.

I and my brother were billeted on old Sam Chappell, his wife and seventeen years old son, in the cottage next to the Chiverton's (then opposite to the Vicarage). The others were well spread around Stairs Hill, the Empshott Lodge, Lythanger and its cottage, the Grange, Bradshott Lodge, Snailing Lane, the Scotlands and a motley crew were installed in Hawkley itself, Oakhanger, and villages to the South West of Hawkley that I cannot recall just now.

The school at Hawkley was used for all the pupils in the mornings, to begin with, and the Village Hut at Empshott was commandeered for the afternoon teaching of those who were in the Empshott area. From my memory, two young masters under Mr. D G Lewis were billeted in Empshott Lodge and it was obvious that they had fallen under the spell of the two lovely daughters of the colonel who resided there at the time! Unfortunately, both of the men were called up or volunteered before very long, and Mr. Lewis became the mainstay of schooling at Empshott and proved a tower of strength under very difficult circumstances. Dr Raine was Head at Hawkley, and was billeted at Parsons Piece. I learned a couple of years ago that Richard Raine, his son, had visited Parsons Piece to see if it were still there, and was made most welcome by its new residents.

However, imagine the situation a number of us originated from the slums of Battersea, and had never been to the country before, let alone able to understand the culture of village life.

But I think in retrospect that it was more of a culture shock to the villagers than to the readily adaptable youngsters. Many of us had only the clothes we stood up in, and our billet hostesses did not believe that they were all we possessed. I am amused in some senses now, when seeing the occasional documentary on TV of the evacuation, by the scene of tearful mothers seeing off their young with suitcases and hold-alls, with sports equipment, etc.

Many of us had in addition to our gas masks, a brown paper bag, with perhaps a first toothbrush and a bar of soap, but more likely a couple of pencils, a rubber and a comb! Our parents were not allowed to see us off; we had to congregate initially at our school, and then walk to the local station where we set off for a secret destination. The plans were admirably constructed; it was two days before the declaration of War and there was still hope of peace in the populace. Parents were encouraged, I have deduced to believe that the exodus was a temporary thing a practice in cases the real thing became necessary.

It is true to say that most boys settled in very quickly, but tended to continue their lifestyle plenty of fruit and vegetables about so why not steal them. Lovely farm and other gates to play with and swing on, so why not play hardly real vandalism or criminality to the perpetrators, but a destructive mode of behavior to the farming community. The villagers were remarkably tolerant nevertheless, in the early months of evacuation; Dr Raine, Mr. King, and Mr. Lewis must have been sorely tried by the wanton behavior of some of their charges. Dr Raine as a thoughtful and advanced educationalist hated the idea of corporal punishment but found in fact that it was a deterrent that really worked it quickly adjusted the moral horizons of most of the school. The villagers enhanced the cultural change most of the farmers and virtually all of the householders went out of their way to teach by both example and constructive use, the ways and tasks of the countryside. Mr Young of Home Farm, Mr Hayler of Reed's Farm and Mr Rustell of Stairs Hill Farm, for example, found little jobs (I suspect in some cases perhaps unnecessary ones) by which the boys could both occupy their spare time and learn some practical things in life. Harry Rustell proved to be a great friend and mentor, and acted like an elder brother, now in his eighties and after fifty-two years he is still in contact with some of the erstwhile boys, and with Mr Lewis who is now in his nineties.

At the focus of most of these activities, organising the surrogate homes, solving problems, settling disputes and liasing with the educationalist, was Miss Allam. Incidentally, I never heard anyone other than her mother, call her Margery until I realised the staff at the Liss Forest Residential Home were using her Christian name! When we visited her there I was astounded and somewhat put out, but she seemed to be quite happy about it. A lot of work went on behind the scenes with respect to our education Miss Allam met with Clive Davies (of Hawkley Hurst) and the masters of the school, to see what could be done about improving the educational facilities. Pressure was applied to the local authorities with respect to setting up examinations to provide opportunities for the brighter pupils to advance their academic development. I was one of those "forced" to sit an intermediate county scholarship, and subsequently was awarded a place at Emanuel School (which had been evacuated from Wandsworth Common to Churchers College at Petersfield). I had to take this up even after I had started work under Mr Swinstead at Blackmoor on Lord Selborne's estate as an assistant under-gardener! Most of the clothing I needed for such a school mysteriously appeared. I never discovered the sources and I was provided with a "County" bike to ride the seven miles to school in the morning and back at night. (The fifteen miles a day kept me fit and gave me a lifelong interest in the sport of cycle racing.)

The church played a very important part in the life of the villages, and most of the evacuated boys quickly or gradually learned to participate freely in that prime element of country culture. Perhaps there never had been nor ever will be again such enthusiastic and vocal if not completely tuneful choirs? What was so impressive was the willingness of most boys to enter into church affairs, and the acceptance of the villagers of their "new sons". I became a member of the PCC at Empshott and was elected a sidesman, surely an indication of full integration? Having been confirmed with many others through the instruction and teaching of the Reverend C G M Hughes. The confirmation service at Portsmouth was, and still is, one of the highlights of my life. In the middle of all the church activities Miss Allam and her mother were a fulcrum around which events arose and were fulfilled. To us all at Empshott Miss Allam was not just an example of moral fibre and high personal standards, but also an understanding human being who could and did sympathise with the problems of others without either condemning nor condoning.

Her God was demanding of the righteous and encouraging of those who did not attain the moral expectations of others. It is not surprising that even after fifty years, a number of us reflect on our lives and times at Empshott and Hawkley, and conclude that they were the real turning points in our existence. In so many ways the central point proved to be the Church: it was not only the medium of our spiritual life, it was the focus of our social endeavours and development as well.

It is often futile to speculate on "what might have been", but there are a number of us who look upon the days of evacuee life at Empshott and Hawkley as the time when we were ably helped to pull ourselves out of the gutter in which we could so easily have remained had we continued to live in London.

War is awful, yet as with so many horrible things it can change circumstances for the better, providing the opportunities are recognised. We were in no position to identify nor understand these ourselves, but people such as Margery Allam and her mother could see the possibilities with such clarity between 1939 and 1945.

So, when someone very kindly sent me a copy of the address given at her funeral, I noted that there was no reference to those ominous but promising days. That is understandable, since there can be very few if any inhabitants who have survived in the village from that period. We have lost many who were great friends then, the Smith family (with Bertha, Len, and now Ernie having died in recent years) the two Bone families (one on Stairs Hill, the other in the Lythanger Lodge cottage). The Mayoh widow and daughter; the Newells at 2 Stairs Hill; the Chivertons from Empshott Green (Mrs "Chivvy" was a great character, full of kindliness and hospitality to us, and unfailingly wrote me letters when I was serving in the Far East), and the Haylers. An era which, short though it might have been, ought not to be lost in the mists of time, especially when it was so crucial to the development of a part of a new, perhaps wiser, generation.

I hope that I have not bored you with this, my fingers have run away with me and I certainly did not intend this letter to be so fulsome, but when my memories of the Empshott days start stirring my heart invariably becomes full. We, I and my fellow evacuees know full well that whatever we are today was forged during that time, and, more so, that we are better mentally and morally than we would have been had we not experienced life in Empshott and its surrounding villages, with their hardworking but kindly and supportive peoples.

Yours sincerely,

Charles J Sammonds. (From a letter dated 20 th September 1991)

Below are more details from Charles - they run into many pages - suggest you review these off line using the History option - they certainly make interesting reading.

THE WAR THAT WASN’T (at least for a while!)

September the first, 1939, was a very confusing day, and is still a jumble of disconnected memories, even after many years. At recent reunions of the Battersea Central School evacuees there were still arguments as to where we detrained, was it Liss, or was it Petersfield? It is obvious that most of us have quite sharp memories of relatively small incidents, whereas perhaps we forgot (because they did not impact on us at the time) the important decisions and actions taken by the masters and the billeting officers. For example, the son of the deputy head - John Lewis - who later became chief engineer of London Transport - was only ten at the time, but recalled the difficulties that the buses that brought us to Hawkley had in coping with the sharp corners on the very steep Hawkley Hill - but he could not remember where he was first billeted!

"You know why our buses had to reverse two or three times on the Hill, and then at the Green, don’t you?" he said - knowing full well that most of us could not even remember that they did - "It was because the Dennis Darts normally used for the narrow country lanes were too small to carry our number, and the Bus Company had to use Dennis Lancers, whose wheelbases were too long to negotiate tight turns straight off". It was obvious where his childhood interests were in those days. Other memories discussed included the Methodist Chapel in Petersfield, where we apparently congregated after detraining - and I have no recollection of that at all! - and the lack of food and drink throughout the journey from Clapham Junction. Especially vivid in some minds was the address given by T Clive Davies (the shipping millionaire who, as local Squire, was the overall billeting supremo and a very commanding and dominating figure), which seemed to upset the masters, as he declared that in future he would be in charge of everything!

How the billet allocations were sorted out, I still have no clue, and the arguments between the evacuees at the reunions have never clarified anything, other than that it did happen somehow, and thus billet hostesses gradually drifted off with their charges, protesting that they had prepared accommodation for a girls school (which we found amusing). As it happened, the BCS Girls School had been evacuated to Petersfield itself, sharing the Petersfield High School premises. Another local London school, the Emanuel, situated on the border between Battersea and Wandsworth, had also been evacuated to Petersfield, where, as befitting a Public School, it shared the facilities of Churchers College. Incidentally, a Wandsworth address in those days connoted middle class housing, etc, whereas Battersea was still known for its working class slums, unemployment, and lawlessness! No wonder the Emanuel address was given as Wandsworth Common, rather than Clapham Junction, Battersea!

Nonetheless, a couple of small groups were left standing by Hawkley Green, by the village school next to the Church, and we were then introduced to the lady who was to be the billeting officer for Empshott, Bradshott and Greatham. She was a Miss Allam, a stern figure at that time, who came from a wealthy farming family; tall, upright and censorious of countenance, she was a spinster of 40-ish, and immediately struck fear into our hearts. Fortunately we later discovered her true nature when problems arose, and she demonstrated her generosity, Christian faith and caring belief in the goodness of mankind. She became an inspiration to me, guiding me away from my (natural?) slum-bred behaviour patterns, and towards the ethics of the Church, when I was one of those conscripted into the Church choir. I grew to love that Church - known as the Holy Rood - and eventually became one of its sidesmen.

My brother George and I were taken to Empshott Green by Miss Allam’s car, and introduced to Mr and Mrs Chappell who were to be our billet hosts. At least I assume we were introduced, because all I can remember is a small thatched cottage, with a dark, dank room at the rear, presumably a kitchen, but with a hard trodden earth floor. There were no words of welcome from Mrs Chappell, and no words at all from Mr., who just sat in his wheelchair and glowered at us. I seem to remember that Mrs moaned that we were not girls who might have helped with the housework, and we did not look old enough to help in the garden or fields. It was only a lot later that I learned that this village also had been told to expect girls’ school, and what a shock it was when we mainly slum-bred and coarsely behaved teenaged boys arrived.

"Get yourselves washed and to bed" was our first instruction from Mrs Chappell. George said that he was hungry (we had had very little, if any, to eat and drink most of that day, having missed the food that was given at Petersfield to the first arrivals), but we had to wash first, before having a bit of bread and cheese and a mug of water. The next shock was that there were no lights, and no running water. The toilet was a little wooden shed with a bucket, some hundred yards up the rear garden (across a field, so it seemed to us!). We had to fill a bowl from a large copper under the sink (which had to be replenished by bucket drawn from a well in the front garden next door, we established later when it became our job to do it).

Candles were lit and we were ushered up a narrow, very rickety staircase to the attic, directly beneath the thatch - with no protection between the thatch and us. Our bed - we had to share a single thin mattress laid on a cot - was directly below the main beams or rafters of the cottage, and we had to slide in sideways to get under the single blanket. Naturally I insisted on George getting in first, to take the tapered side of the roof. We had only the clothes we wore for the journey, no spare socks or pants, just our gasmasks and a brown paper bag each in which were a toothbrush, a pencil and a rubber. We probably did not know what night-clothes or pyjamas were, being used to sleeping in our underclothes, under old coats or blanket pieces. George and I often laughed years later when films of the evacuation showed boys and girls with loaded suitcases, tennis rackets and cricket bats, congregating on the station platforms awaiting transport to the country, with middle class mums clasping them farewell! How different was the reality for a lot of us!

I remember, even with my then general ignorance, being frightened by the naked candles in proximity to the dry straw of the thatch just above us, but either Mrs Chappell or her very coarse seventeen years old son, took the candles from us when we were abed. The crowing of roosters woke us our first morning in the country. We had no watches, so had no idea of the time, but it was light and sunny. Later we were supplied with an alarm clock that played "The Bluebells of Scotland", that really did intrigue us. However, it was obvious that the children in the Chiverton’s cottage were up and about and making rude noises to get us out of bed. George sat up rather suddenly and immediately squealed as his head hit the rafter directly above him, shaking down a few insects from the bare thatch. That set him off crying and he became homesick, so as his older brother I tried to console him by saying that our stay would not be long, but it was the smell of cooking bacon that finally took his mind off his bruised head and his need for "Mum". Mrs Chappell stomped up the stairs and told us to get dressed, washed, and ready for breakfast.

Down in that dark kitchen (also dining room and scullery) Mr Chappell sat immobile in his wheelchair, his glowering expression apparently normal, and with no word of greeting, or even a look to indicate he knew of our presence. George looked at him with naked fear and started whimpering again, not understanding the poor man’s predicament - and yet I had an inkling of a sentient human being yet unable to communicate. From this distance in time it was obvious that he had suffered some form of stroke, but what medical care or nursing was he having, or could have in those rural parts, where doctors had to be paid for visits?

(Jumping forward to 1950, when I paid a visit to Empshott Green, I was not surprised to find the old Chappell’s cottage completely burnt out. It was more than likely that a careless cigarette or candle in that attic bedroom had finally caught the naked thatch. Another remarkable coincidence occurred when I stopped at an Esso petrol station on my way down to Empshott in 1994, when the pump attendant, chatting about the roads, asked where I was going. On my saying "near Petersfield", he commented that he used to live near there "in a small village called Empshott". I said that Empshott was exactly where I was going for a reunion of evacuees, and that I was first billeted at Empshott Green with the Chappells. "Well, I’m damned" he said, "we moved into the Chappell’s cottage when the old boy died, but I set fire to the thatch when I unfortunately knocked over a candle in the bedroom after we’d been there two years". He had been evacuated with his mother from Portsmouth.)

The second day of September 1939, was a fine Saturday, made more attractive by a breakfast of sheer luxury, bacon, and fried bread - relatively unknown by us except when we visited my father’s married sisters who lived in Chelsea.

I had the chore of getting refills of ice-cold water from the shared well, and then I discovered that the lady next door, Mrs Chiverton, had agreed to take in at least two evacuees, including a couple of my year mates. She also had four children of her own, so had taken on a formidable task, but she proved a very formidable woman in looks and energy and a deep Christian faith. (Mainly through the church I later became very friendly with her, right up to when she died in 1986 aged 91!) Initially, however, very few of us could understand her broad country dialect, but her eldest daughter, Kathleen, was able to interpret for us, until our ears became attuned to the local accent. (Kathleen is still in touch with us, after 61 years!)

One of the evacuees then was Michael Bryant, who became a most revered TV and Shakespearean actor; another was Peter Crofts who decided on leaving school in 1942 that the country life was for him, and he worked in the area until his death in 1982, and his tombstone is at the front of the Hawkley churchyard. Yet another one was Michael Voysey who later achieved eminence in the arts world.

But, back to that first Saturday, 2nd September, 1939, I think we assumed that somehow there would be communications between the masters and us, and that we need not bother to do anything until they gave us instructions. At Empshott Green therefore we just talked and walked along the lanes, fondly believing that meals would materialise at the right times. The weather was kind to us and our new friends were helpful in telling us about the local farms; where the shop was; the services in the church; the best places for blackberries, for scrumping, even where derelict cottages still had their small orchards with apples, pears and plums available. I was entranced and gave no thought whatsoever to my poor parents, who were undoubtedly wondering how their two oldest lads were faring.

Over in Hawkley the school was getting organised, we found out later, with some senior pupils given the responsibility of acting as messengers, and the staff were negotiating with parish councillors and church officers, for the use of rooms, huts and the village bakery. We lads just could not have imagined the hectic discussions and decisions that eventually led to the organisation that was able to control us, no matter how dispersed we were over what proved to be six neighbouring villages. One upshot of this was that Dr Raine took full responsibility for the school’s evacuated pupils, and Clive Davies and Miss Allam for the provision and maintenance of billets and their hosts.

Thus our pleasant reveries did not last long - we had a message on that morning that we should assemble after lunch at the Green for an official "country walk" under the supervision of a master (probably Mr Lewis, but I just cannot remember) when the laws and the lore of the country were drummed into us. We were all impressed by the admonition not to eat blackberries until we could distinguish them from deadly nightshade, nor to try the crab apples that proliferated in deserted gardens (were the Chiverton children really so friendly about those derelict cottages, we wondered?). The following two weeks were essentially repeats of that activity, where the masters desperately attempted to improve our understanding of the country culture, and did their best to ensure that we did not upset the tenor of the lives of the local country folk, our, only partially, willing hosts.

The next day, Sunday the third of September 1939, was a significant day that we probably did not appreciate until later. It started as normal, fine weather and the prospect of another country walk, but soon messengers were walking, running, and cycling between villages, calling masters to meetings at Hawkley. Mr Lewis, for one at least, had returned to bring his car down, and how useful that turned out to be. There were rumours, not only among us, but also on the way up to church we heard the villagers talking seriously about the likelihood of war - "and these lads will have to stay down here, then, for God knows how long!"

Then one of the seniors caught up with us, probably about twelve o’clock, and told us that war had been declared and that the air-raid sirens had sounded in London. Despite my youth and lack of understanding of what war meant, I remember a frisson down my spine and a tightening in my stomach. The only subject of conversation was that we were not going back to London within a fortnight, but were likely to be kept in the village. I, strangely and guiltily, felt quite comfortable with that thought, as I probably had never enjoyed my surroundings so much, nor had eaten so well before.

So, we were instructed to meet at Hawkley School on the Monday morning for a talk by the Head and what the plans would be in the event of an air raid. No longer could we fool ourselves or our hosts that our evacuation was a two or three week's practice, but we were to live in the country indefinitely. My brother George (only eleven years of age) did understand that, and started crying for his mother, and was almost inconsolable, but as he was the youngest of our crowd he was forgiven his homesickness: then, fortunately, a master turned up to talk to us and take us on a walk, and managed to divert George’s mind away from his trepidation's.

In retrospect I do not envy the tasks of the masters at that time, having their own family responsibilities and yet having to take care of up to a hundred Battersea boys ranging in age from 11 to 16 or 17, some of whom had also brought their younger brothers and sisters down with them! Most of the lads seemed to settle in very quickly, although their natural cockney exuberance often led to breakage's of the country code and therefore to conflict with the farmers. Some lads, not many, just could not accustom themselves to a different style of living, but I cannot recall any simply running away (where could they have run to?). I remember one of my friends, Stan Woodgate (later managing director of a music company) being collected by his parents within the first month or so, from his billet on Stairs Hill. He had been placed with people we called the ‘Old Bones’, an elderly couple in an old cottage. He just could not tolerate using the bucket in the shed at the back of the garden, on quite a steep slope - bad enough during the day, but horrendous at night. A letter to his father, a relatively prosperous businessman, quickly ended his stay in the country.

So started the serious business of incorporating the life and learning culture of Battersea Central School into the very different culture of the country villages, a process that took - for most of us - only a few months. However, during the period of the next four to five years, we all metamorphosed into adults with personalities, which undoubtedly were considerably different from those, which we would have developed had we not been evacuated from London. Some of us developed a love of the Church, a healthy respect for the moral code of the countrymen and women, and an undying affection for the lanes, fields, and hills in and around those villages. Who and what would have we become if we had not been evacuated in 1939. Thankfully, as opposed to the experiences of other evacuees elsewhere, we had conscientious and committed teaching staff, who ensured that our education was continued, regardless of the circumstances, facilities, and premises. The reunions of Battersea Central School evacuees over many years are testaments to the affections and loyalties that were bred during those difficult times in a strange but friendly environment.

It is difficult to explain these effects without delving into the lives of many and different individuals, so perhaps one day some proper research will be carried out into the overall impact of evacuation on the children of the threatened Towns and Cities. For the time being, my tale will concentrate on the way my life was changed by the experiences of War-time evacuation, the relationships formed and broken, and the influence of those relationships on my subsequent military, family, and professional career development.

SETTLING IN: -September, 1939 to April 1940

Once it was apparent that we were all in for a long stay in the country, the school got itself organised very quickly and efficiently. As far as I remember the weather was kind to us, certainly I cannot recall George or myself getting soaked, despite our lack of protective clothing. The main problems as far as the schoolmasters were concerned were ensuring we settled in our billets and had sufficient to do to keep us out of mischief. One organised activity was helping the local farmers to pick their hops, which also attracted money for school funds. Although some lads had been hop picking before the War, most of us had no idea of what it entailed, and, despite any initial enthusiasm, the sheer boredom of attempting to fill the huge sacks became off-putting. One master had the idea of giving us small baskets to fill, which were then taken to another master to check the quality of picking before they were emptied into a sack. The psychological ploy worked well, as not only did one see the results of ones efforts as the baskets filled fairly quickly, but there were regular breaks from the work to take the baskets along and rest one’s back. I think we must have been a source of considerable amusement to the genuine hoppers, who seemed to pick almost leisurely but filled those huge sacks, remarkably quickly. The attractive smell of hops would stay on our hands for hours, and even today I can still recall the sweetish odour, but in those days I never really associated it with beer!

The hop picking lasted one or two weeks, during which time the negotiations for the use of the Hawkley School and other facilities were finalised. We took over the whole of the school in the mornings (I cannot remember what the local children did for their schooling) but we divided in the afternoon, the boys billeted in the Empshott area had to walk back to attend their afternoon classes in the Empshott Village Hut. This was situated next to Reed’s Farm, not far from the Church, and proved reasonably central for most of us. Once this arrangement had been agreed with the local parish councils, schooling became serious again, and the holiday atmosphere soon dissipated. Just for a few days, the Empshott boys had to gather at Empshott Green at 8,30 to meet a master who then led the mile or two’s walk to Hawkley. Once it had been established that we knew the way (we could hardly lose ourselves along that narrow country lane!) then we took responsibility for getting ourselves to the morning school. There were of course distractions: the squirrels in the trees, the wild Autumn flowers, the hazel nuts and conkers, and inevitably the Lower Green and Higher Green duck ponds, into which we paddled until a passing master remonstrated with us. The local farm lads initially teased us, but soon became friendly and helpful, and the local country girls flirted unashamedly despite their young ages!

I find it difficult to remember how the morning classes were scheduled; there were periods of mathematics, English and a form of science, but the highlight for me was the "assembly" before classes commenced. Here Dr Raine would say the odd prayer, deal with the notices for the day or week, cane any miscreants, and launch a short singsong. "Riding Down to Bangor" was a favourite (apparently it was a campfire song that the school sang at Summer camps - that I could not afford to attend!). Even today I can remember the words and tune. One notice that had a considerable effect (but the opposite to the desired one) was when Dr Raine separated out the fourth year boys and above, and adjured us to keep away from local girls of "a certain reputation". Much time was spent in discussing these and asking the local lads to whom he was referring, but they simply laughed and commented that we would find out soon enough. Some of the fifth and sixth years apparently did!

The morning punishments soon disappeared as well, once we had learned how seriously the farmers took their responsibilities for cattle wandering, cleanliness of drinking ponds, and the condition of fences and hedges. For the first month or so, however, we Battersea urchins as playgrounds and battlegrounds looked upon fields, gates, and ponds. The locals were surprisingly tolerant - and quite sympathetic to our plight - and we quickly learned the country lore. About the final, but most serious, misbehaviour occurred when a gate on the Cheesecombe road was lifted off its hinges and used as a raft on the nearby pond. Five lads were actively involved in this, and my brother George stood as a bystander, just watching. The herds of cows normally contained by that gate soon escaped and caused much bother up in the village. The farmer could not turn a blind eye to that and complained that six boys were concerned, thus brother George, despite his protests of innocence, was among those publicly caned (and I was berated for not keeping an eye on him!). George was indignant for many years afterwards at this terrible injustice, and would refer to it at the least provocation as an example of being assumed guilty until proved innocent! There was very little if any further vandalism after that episode, and the two cultures cohabited in relative peace if not total harmony!

It was while I was still at the Chappell’s that I had my first accident: we were playing some form of handball (officially) on the sports field behind the bakery, when I tried to turn with the ball, and found that I was standing on a small hummock which turned my ankle and sprained it badly. Doc Raine took me down to the doctor’s surgery at Liss, where it was examined and bandaged. Unfortunately, on walking home from the Hut I stepped on a large tuft in the paddock behind the Vicarage and really turned it over again. It took weeks to heal and was never completely right for years afterwards!

The Empshott Hut proved not only a reasonable place for learning, but with the villagers’ approval a useful social club for the boys in the evenings, where we could do our homework (not many of us admittedly), play Monopoly, learn snooker and billiards, and perform plays and concerts (to which the local populace were invited). By Christmas 1939 most of us had settled into our second or third billets as more appropriate ones were identified, and became an accepted part of village life. Mr D. G. Lewis liased with Miss Allam and Mrs Prince (the Postmaster’s wife) to put on a Christmas concert in December 1939.

Local children also became involved and the concert had an ambitious programme, ranging from an exhibition of ballet dancing by a girl, through comedy sketches, to the production of "The Vicar’s Candlesticks" whose cast comprised the third and fourth years boys. I was chosen as the Vicar, Peter Crofts as the villain and brother George as one of his lookouts. I had never performed in public before, and I had a terrible job to remember my lines, but in fact I went blank only once when I was supposed to be praying just before the villain came in to rob me, so the audience did not notice that I repeated my lines twice! We were heartily applauded, but having an audience has put off the biggest cheer came for George, who was not, and never since. He had no lines to learn, only to pretend to light up a sweet cigarette as he was helping Peter Crofts. When the time came to do this, he calmly lit a real cigarette and puffed away (at the age of 11) and the masters just could not do anything at the time. He disappeared before the play ended, and surprisingly got away with his joust at authority. "Ensuring realism," he said! (Fifty years later, Mr Lewis aged ninety wrote to me, addressing me as "Bishop" and reminisced about that play, saying that he "forgave George for eating the sweet, and then lighting a real cigarette on stage".)

The Hut was heated by a coal-fired stove placed centrally - much as many servicemen will remember the heating of Nissen Huts during the War - and efforts were made to ensure that the stove was lit before we came back from Hawkley to the afternoon classes. Sometimes this system failed and it was left to the master to light up the often-recalcitrant stove, but on one occasion we were all in place before Mr Forbes had arrived. We tried to do the job for him, but failed, even after pouring on paraffin and stuffing paper into the bottom of the stove. Mr Forbes turned up, and with a comment that he knew how to make sure the stove lit properly, poured even more paraffin into the top, and struck a match. The resultant whoosh and ceiling high flames were very impressive, and we were lucky not to have ignited the entire building, but Mr Forbes lost his eyebrows and singed his sports jacket. Mr Rowley Forbes turned up at one of the School Evacuees Reunion and had fond memories of teaching in Empshott Village Hut!

It was at the beginning of 1940 that we had other evacuees turn up, who joined us at Battersea Central School, but who had come from other schools. Among those were Arthur Govus and, I was so pleased to see, Tom Cowell, and we three have remained friends for life. Whether it was fact or apocryphal, the story soon got around that Tom had been brought down in a Rolls Royce by his mother. Arthur was billeted at Uplands farm at the end of Snailing Lane, and Tom had a billet at the other end of the Lane. Tom soon had tales to tell of his hostess, who used to swoop on the table, as her lads were about to have more bread and butter or jam, with the expression "There’s another day tomorrow". It was not long before that became a catch phrase throughout the school, repeated with a high pitched cackle!

Later that year both were lucky to be found exceptionally good billets: Arthur came to Empshott to live with the "Young Bones" in the bungalow at Lythanger (General Sir Arthur Wauchope’s estate), and Tom found his niche at Hawkley Hurst, the estate of the shipping millionaire T. Clive Davies.

All in all, by Spring 1940, most if not all the evacuees had been placed in good, welcoming homes, and our schooling had settled down, albeit with the walks from Empshott and Snailing Lane to Hawkley and back, which were no real hardship and kept us relatively fit! Then the Council were good enough to supply bicycles to those over 12 who could ride them and who lived outside Hawkley. In the file box that Dick Raine (Doc Raine’s son) gave me when he combed through his mother’s effects in 1999, is a list of those given bicycles, with their numbers. My brother George, living about the farthest from Hawkley at Bradshott, was not allowed one, and this was another injustice that rankled for some time - he was either not quite twelve, or, more likely, could not ride a bike!

I was lucky in that Johnny Yates taught me to ride his small bike that his father had brought down from London, just the week before the issue of the "County’s", but Bill Eastland ("Daisy") hoodwinked the masters into believing that he could. On his first ride back to Empshott he failed to stop at the bottom of Church Hill Lane and crashed into the Post Office, fortunately without hurting himself but ruining the bike.

Johnny, as generous as always, lent Bill his and rode his own small machine to school, only to be caned for doing so, when he was found out!

My Brother George and his Billets

It was probably getting quite late on that September 1st, when Miss Allam at Empshott Green dropped off George and me, as I still have the impression of gloom and oppressiveness. However, that might well be the conditioned memory of being taken into the Chappell’s cottage with its foreboding appearance, and the definitely unwelcoming looks on Mr and Mrs Chappell’s faces. They had expected a girls’ school and we slum-bred lads must have been a shock to them (later we heard the comments that "a couple of girls would have been helpful around the house, but boys are always a nuisance"). As they were both very elderly (definitely over sixty, maybe over 70 years of age) and Mr Chappell was wheelchair bound, the billet was obviously unsuited to us, and it was not long before Miss Allam decided we ought to be shifted. It was policy with the billet organisers that brothers and sisters ought to be together if at all possible, but in those early days it must have been difficult to arrange this. By November George and I were put temporarily with Mrs Randall on Stairs Hill, whilst Miss Allam attempted to find homes for us. Mrs Randall had already accepted three or four boys, so the small cottage was crowded. It was a friendly home with a good-natured family, and we enjoyed the two or three weeks there.

But before then, whilst we still at Empshott Green, it was realised by the officials that George and I had only the clothes we stood up in - no spare socks, shoes, trousers or jerseys (neither of us had a coat, or any other protection against bad weather). Our father had obviously been written to by the billeting officer, and had sent a sixpenny postal order. It was Mrs Chiverton in the next cottage who cashed it and bought a pair of socks for me, as mine had huge holes in. It was probably all our father had to spare at the time, but about a fortnight after evacuation, he borrowed and rode an old rusty bicycle down to Empshott Green with a couple of sacks over the handlebars and the rear carrier. It was the first time he’d ridden a bike since the late twenties and he suffered somewhat, taking as far as I gathered eight or nine hours to do the fifty three miles, and having lost his way once he came off the A3. The sacks contained boots and clothing (socks, vests and roll-necked jerseys) for each of us, bought from the Tally Man, and to be paid for by something like a shilling a week. He was exhausted, it was dark when he arrived, and a grudging Mrs Chappell agreed he could sleep on the floor downstairs, so that he could ride back to London the following day. When he wrote to say he’d arrived safely, he also said that the journey again took well over seven hours, and that he was saddle sore and stiff all over. On reflection I think it was a heroic effort - he was forty years old, and a manual worker and had just come off night shift and had to go on again the night he returned! But I smile when I remember that in the fifties (when I had resumed cycle racing) London to Empshott and back was a favourite training run for me and I usually took two and half-hours each way.

I suppose that we were very lucky with the weather, as I do not remember needing protection from the rain or snow, although at some stage in October or November I was admitted to Liss Forest Cottage Hospital with septic chilblains, and found that I thoroughly enjoyed hospital life, once again. George had the constitution of an ox, for he never seemed to suffer any ailments or accidents. He soon lost his homesickness, but never liked living at the Chappell’s, being very wary of Mr Chappell’s scary appearance and Mrs Chappell’s waspish tongue.

Miss Allam eventually found new billets for us, not together but the next best thing in that I was taken to the Mortimers at number three Empshott Place, and George placed next door with an Army captain at number two. I have forgotten his and his wife’s names but they were a nice couple and George thoroughly enjoyed his time there. Empshott Place was in fact converted oasts or hopkilns, and for many years the houses were known as the Hopkiln Cottages. They were civilised homes, with internal lavatories, and water tanks in the roof spaces that were replenished by semi-rotary manual pumps in the kitchen. Lighting was by oil vapour mantle lamps, which were so much brighter than the wick lamps used at previous billets. Also we were able to wash in the warm indoors instead of using a water butt outside - at the Randall’s on more than one occasion we had to break the ice on the top of the butt before we could fill the wooden-handled shallow bowls in which we washed.

Unfortunately George’s tenure at the Hopkilns was cut short after just a few weeks, when the captain was rudely awakened one morning and marched off by the military police. I gathered later that it was a serious matter of mess accounts fraud (not that it meant much to me at the time), but George at virtually a moment’s notice had to move to Bradshott Lodge a further half-mile East, to be temporarily housed until another billet could be found for him. He was quite put out, but he then became proud of the fact that he was the youngest boy to have the furthest distance to walk to the school at Hawkley. Fortunately there was a senior boy (Hugh Leutchford) who was permanently billeted in the Lodge, so he had company for the two and half miles trudge to school each morning. As the afternoon school had to held in the Village Hut at Empshott, it also meant a two miles walk back at lunchtime. No wonder we became very fit for London urchins! About this time many of us older lads were issued with what were known as "County Bikes", provided by the local authority, but George, being only 12, was too young for one!

Miss Allam eventually found another billet for him in the village of Hawkley itself, with Mrs Pride the Postmistress. Mr Pride worked as a special constable at Portsmouth so was rarely seen, but they had a son, Johnny, who was the same age as George and they got on very well indeed together. The Post Office in 1940 was next door to the "Queen’s Arms" (the only pub around for miles), until it was moved to the South of the village after the war. The billet was so comfortable and friendly that George stayed there until he left school in 1942, and maintained contact with the Pride family for many years. In fact my father was so impressed that he changed our mother’s billet (in Reading) during the blitz in London and arranged for Mrs Pride to put her up until she could return to Battersea. I think that George then resented mother’s presence as it restricted the independence and freedom that Mrs Pride allowed the two boys.

Being resident in Hawkley, George could enter into the school and local activities that were denied us in Empshott (although we had a form of social club in the Hut most evenings), and his chubby charm, good humour and tolerance, made him many friends in the village, including the local lads. However, he would take up interests with much enthusiasm, and equally drop them when something else turned up. Thus it was when he took over one of the allotments allocated to the school, for the growing of vegetables in the field behind the pub. With great energy he dug the plot, de-stoned it, and prepared it for seeding, then lost interest when he was allowed to ride horses that Mr Pride stabled and cared for. I took over the allotment, and finished off the seeding and planting, then - much to George’s chagrin - that allotment was awarded first prize in the school competition! I was presented with "The Country Book" by E. Golding (which I still have on my bookshelves), and when George saw what the prize was his wrath subsided. As he said at the time, "I’d sooner have a screwdriver".

My Billet Hostesses

I discussed the "settling in period", when we found our feet and were shuffled around to more suitable billets. The majority of the villages’ women proved welcoming, sympathetic and helpful. However, our first hostess, Mrs Chappell at Empshott Green, was elderly and tied by her wheelchair bound husband, so could not put herself out to do much for George and me. Next door, fortunately, lived Mrs Chiverton, a thin waspish God fearing woman, whose country accent and dialect rather confused us for a while, but she was generosity and thoughtfulness personified. She was married to Tom Chiverton, a veteran of the Great War, who despite his limp cycled up to Longmoor Military Camp, where he worked, and back each day. They had four children: Tom, Ron, Kathleen and Jean, all of whom accepted us into their circle, and proved most helpful in teaching us aspects of the country code, and where to find interesting places such as the Nore Hill springs, the inchoate river Rother in which grew watercress, and the orchards of long deserted cottages in the copses below Nore Hill. Tom was about eighteen then and soon volunteered into the Army, Ron was fourteen, Kath twelve and Jean nine or ten.

The latter two attended Hawkley School, so often we would walk there and back together. Kath tended to be the serious one (and eventually enlisted into the WAAF’s) whereas Jean was a live wire, albeit with a coarse tongue and crude sense of humour. After George and I were re-billeted before Christmas 1939, we saw less of the family.

To get back to Mrs Chiverton: - despite her own four children (although Tom and Ron were at work), she took on two or three evacuees (Peter Wright and Stan Creed are listed in the formal records) and yet still took time to look after George and me when we had problems with our clothing (or more likely the lack of it!). Water was obtained from a well in the front of the cottages, but the toilets were at the rear of the back gardens. How we all managed, I now find difficult to envisage!

Mrs Chivvy, as we all fondly referred to her, always had an open door and a ready cup of tea, and when I was on leave in 1944 and then sick leave in 1945, always seemed to be pleased to see me, or any other evacuee, come to that, and would regale me with the latest news in the village. When I was posted overseas, she wrote regularly to me, as did her daughter Kathleen, until I returned and was able to call on the family, to be treated as if I had never been away! Reflecting on that, I now wonder how she made time to write, for both Tom and Ron were overseas and Kath was eventually stationed in Wales in the WAAF. I kept in touch with her for years, and Ivy and I visited her in Petersfield in the early 1980’s when she became ill. Sadly she died in 1986, aged over ninety, and when we attended her funeral we were able to meet up with some of the rest of the family we had not seen for over forty years. We are still in touch with Kathleen and Ron, but Jean died some years ago. I was always grateful for Kath’s writing to me, as it was at the time that Rina stopped, for obvious reasons, and my Battersea friend stopped, for no reason.

I was billeted with the Mortimers from December 1939 to about June 1941, when Mr Mortimer obtained another position at Basingstoke. We had some desultory letter correspondence up to 1945, but my eternal gratitude to them was for instilling into me the discipline needed to study properly and to learn to do housework! Mr Mortimer also obtained a temporary job for me at Lord Selborne’s estate, where I learned much of the craft of gardening and particularly grafting buds onto stocks, in the nurseries.

For the fortnight that elapsed between leaving the Mortimer’s and transferring to Mrs Smith on Stairs Hill, I was put into Mrs Dace’s in Yew Tree Cottage in Empshott Green. She was the local policeman’s mother, but we rarely saw him as he lived somewhere in Greatham. Yew Tree Cottage was a 14th Century large house, with some of its furbishments apparently taken from Selborne Priory (when the latter was dealt with by Henry 8th’s dissolution of the monasteries), and still has a magnificent carved stairway column from the ground floor to the attic, wherein are massive oak beams constructed via wooden pegs to form the trusses. Mrs Dace was a kindly elderly woman who had unfashionable ideas on letting children find their own level of relationships, interests, and enjoyment. She had a gramophone which she let me use (I had never experienced such a machine before) and I became besotted with Bizet’s Carmen, which I played at every opportunity. Also I was allowed to go out with Ron Chiverton and learn to shoot with his 4.10 shotgun; another farmhand let me borrow his .22 Mauser to shoot rabbits - such was the trust of the country folk. Just imagine what our parents’ reactions would have been had they known! All in all that was a wonderful fortnight’s educational holiday!

Then I went to Mrs Smith’s at number three Stairs Hill - opposite to where my long-term friend Johnny Yates was billeted with the Tulls in Spring Cottage. Mrs Smith was an elderly widow, whose husband had been seriously wounded in the Great War, and spent much of his subsequent life in hospital until he died well before the thirties. She had the opposite attitude to Mrs Mortimer - she believed that the man’s jobs were in the garden and the workshed when not earning money at his employment! So when I offered to wash and wipe up, or clear the table, etc, she would tell me not to interfere with the woman’s work but do something useful outside - saw and chop wood, maintain the huge garden, look after the fruit and vegetables, repair anything I saw needed repairing! That was a philosophy, which stood me in good stead until I married! However, she did accept that I needed to do homework and study, and made sure that I could use the dining room table and the one and only paraffin pressure lamp for good light.

Mrs Smith had as far as I remember four children alive, Len, George (a regular soldier), Bertha (the cook in one of the mansions at Hill Brow) and Ernie (known as Super Smith, for his motorcycling exploits), and only the latter still lived at home. She was obviously over sixty when she took on evacuees, but the only one I can trace at present before me was Paul (?) who had the dubious experience of falling down the narrow stairs, crashing through the landing window and landing on the path outside, all without a scratch on him! He returned to London shortly afterwards and thereby made room for me. Mrs Smith’s brother-in-law, Walter Smith, was the postmaster at nearby Liss Post Office, and when she thought I was reliable, she persuaded him to give me a job as a temporary postman for the six weeks of the summer holidays. I did that for two or three years and apparently became well known in the general area, to the extent that when Dick Coombs took over the job prior to call-up, everyone called him "Charlie", much to his chagrin.

A good many evacuees essentially became part of the hostess’ family and not only stayed in one place for years, but maintained contact for many years after the War. For example, Arthur Govus has for sixty years still kept in touch with the Bones’ family, attending weddings and christenings, etc, of the grandchildren of his original billet hosts who lived in the Lythanger Bungalow at Empshott.

Similarly, the annual reunions I started in 1985 have provided opportunities for ex-evacuees to call on the new inhabitants of their old billets and introduce themselves as Wartime residents. Without fail they have been welcomed, and in some cases have been enabled to meet up with relatives of their old hostesses.

Miss Allam

Our first contact with Miss Margery R Allam was when we were assembled at Hawkley on September 1st. 1939, to be distributed among the local villagers. I think most of us were confused as to what was going on, having been delivered from Clapham Junction by train to Petersfield, then by bus or coach to Hawkley. One incident that stands out in most people’s minds (but not mine as I have always been prone to travel sickness) was when the bus could not manage a steep corner on Hawkley Hill and had to reverse two or three times to cope with it. At the last evacuees reunion (60 years later!) someone mentioned that happening, and John Lewis (the son of the assistant head at that time) who later had become Chief Engineer for London Transport, explained which make of bus it was and why it had had such difficulty! They were Dennis Lancers, I was told.

However, at the time, I am sure that most of the younger evacuees were as bemused as I and my brother George, and could hardly take in what was happening as we were divided up and allocated to the female villagers who stood around - except for about a dozen of us, who were left behind as the others drifted off with their new "hostesses" (as the billet landladies were termed). A tall austere woman with a very authoritative air gathered ups about six of us and put us in a car (later identified as a large Vauxhall with its fluted bonnet), and drove us through the beautiful Autumn countryside. Not that I noticed much, I was trying very hard not to be sick!

Thus our introduction to Miss Allam. Born at the turn of the century, of a wealthy and God-fearing family, she was the fourth child of a farming family, at Burhunt on the boundary of Empshott Parish. Her father had been the Churchwarden of the Holy Rood Church for 47 years, and she had followed in his footsteps in 1938. She also served 45 years, totalling 92 years service between the two of them. She remained a Miss all her life, true to the memory of her fiancée who was killed on the Western Front on November 11th. 1918 - a very hard cross to bear, when peace had prevailed.

Tall, for a pre-war woman, at about 5 feet 9 inches, she was relatively thin with a very ascetic appearance, and never brooked any illogical argument. After her father’s death in 1937 or 1938, she moved with her widowed mother into Stairs Hill House, an imposing residence only a quarter mile from the church. Her view of life was relatively simplistic; all issues to her were black or white never any shades of grey; things were either right or wrong, and reliable back to the Bible in case of any argument. So, she was exceptionally honest in her thoughts, speech and deeds, and it was obvious that she was totally respected - if not loved - and sometimes feared. Her tongue was not waspish but outright in any condemnation. No one ever seemed to call her by her Christian name - to all in the village, high born or not, she was "Miss Allam". Thus I was horrified, when in 1989 on one of my visits to the area, I found that she had had to be taken into Liss Forest Home for the elderly, and the staff there addressed her as "Margery". By then I had been in touch with her for 50 years and was visiting her with my wife, and with Doreen Able, Miss Allam’s friend and companion for 40 years, but we each inevitably addressed her as Miss Allam!

Anyway, in 1939, she conscientiously saw to our needs as the billeting officer for the Empshott evacuees, checking regularly on our billets, our cleanliness and our clothing (a number of us had no clothes other than those we had worn down on the first of September!), and keeping in touch with our parents. Very few of the billets had bathrooms or internal flush toilets, and she allowed those of us who lived on Stairs Hill to have a bath once a week in her large house. But she definitely believed in social systems and the class structure: on the second or third day of evacuation she went round checking and found that the six evacuees who had been temporarily housed in the Right Honourable Mrs Guy Baring’s mansion, Empshott Grange, were treated as house guests. Miss Allam immediately rectified that by ensuring that the boys moved into the servants quarters and ate in the servants hall.

But, she was kind where it was appropriate, arranging for billet changes where lads had not fitted in, behind the scenes obtaining clothing for those from poorer families, and encouraging social activities in the village so that the evacuees could join in. I realised that if she had made any suggestions to any of the villagers, whether retired generals or farm workers, they were looked upon as instructions to be carried out promptly! Thus when she intimated that evacuees could augment the church choir, the masters of the school immediately arranged that a number of us went to choir practice. The result was an increase in volume, if not in harmony!

We had her to thank for being able to continue our schooling in the afternoons in the Church Hut, as Hawkley School then was restricted in numbers, when the school sharing arrangements came into being. She was also responsible for encouraging the local authorities to open up examination arrangements, to give the evacuees opportunities to obtain scholarships to local grammar schools.

Miss Allam had her own pew in the Holy Rood for her family and guests, and woe betide any who inadvertently used it. The famous eyebrows slightly raised, a quizzical look down her long nose, as she handled the staff at the end of the pew erected as a memorial to her father, and the recipient would blush, mutter confusingly and change position. More than once I can remember at church services, even during the course of a sermon, her quietly getting up and walking to the choir stalls and giving that look to the offending choir boy or girl, without saying a word, and thereby quelling their quiet but inappropriate conversation.

She proved very understanding and helpful when individuals approached her on sensitive or confidential matters. I remember when, at seventeen, I discovered I had developed a very deep religious faith (despite my innate doubts and "modern" questions about morality and the War as it was progressing in 1943), but I was not gaining spiritual relief or guidance from the Church services. Miss Allam listened to my, possibly inarticulate, explanations and discussed what I really expected from the Church services. She agreed I should leave the choir, but put some of my energies into serving the church physically. The next thing I knew was that she had persuaded the Parochial Church Council to appoint me as a sidesman, despite their doubts as to my sincerity because of my youth - I was the youngest sidesman ever appointed in Empshott - and I joined the rota to ring the bells and collect the offertory.

The other example of her deep thoughtfulness occurred two years later when I was on sick leave from the services, in April 1945. Meeting her in Empshott Lane one Sunday, and answering her enquiry as to my health (I had acquired two injured legs), I told her that I was intending to marry a local girl within the next year or two, believing that the War would be over before long. As I was barely nineteen, I expected a calm talk on the responsibilities of married life for one so young, but I found her encouraging and supportive without any sign of a lecture, and, more so, that she hoped that Rina and I would be wed in the Holy Rood of Empshott. It surprised me that she knew of my love for Rina, but that was typical in a small village community - "I know she is young, Charlie, but she is a mature and sensible girl and will make you a good wife, as I know full well you will be a good husband. So, age does not come into the matter, does it?"

I grew to like Miss Allam and her mother - they both encouraged me when I obtained a scholarship to Emanuel at Petersfield - and she really moulded my morality in those days, but I never heard her lecturing anyone, only ever making a quiet comment or suggestion. On going to Emanuel, I received from them a little plaque (still treasured by me) which has been my tenet for all these years:

"If I were a cobbler, t’would be my pride

The best of all cobblers to be,

And if I were a tinker, no tinker beside,

Would mend an old kettle like me."

I effectively maintained contact with her from the end of the War up to the time she started losing her memory and had to be taken into a Home for the Elderly near Liss. Although we visited her at least once a year, she often failed to recognise me or even Doreen, but remained chatty and good humoured. However, at the final visit with my wife, Ivy, she suddenly turned to the nurses and said, "do you know this man is one of my Wartime evacuees". I found that both touching and pleasant, even if she was unable to recall my name!

Miss Allam died in December 1990, aged 91, and a memorial service was held for her and her father in May 1992. I was privileged to be asked to give the address at this service. Privileged, but slightly embarrassed, as I was confused as to what I ought to say at such a solemn occasion, until I thought of her stance on personal morality, and her fidelity to her church and her community over such a long life. So, I used a theme that I came across in 1972 - Lord Moulton’s University salvete address to new graduates in 1920 - "Obedience to the Unenforceable", as it seemed to me to typify Miss Allam’s attitude in regard to the duties and responsibilities of individuals in any form of civilised society. She had personified the need of humans to develop a conscience, an internal system of guidelines that would direct the person to behave in a civilised, if not necessarily a Christian manner, without the need for legal constraints to ensure reasonable relationships with other human beings.

I am sure that Miss Allam’s influence affected the development of many evacuees other than me, during those years when she had the responsibility of ensuring that the lack of immediate parental guidance did not change our lives too adversely. In fact her Christian principles and steadfastness in the face of adversity were undoubtedly an example to all villagers, whether Church attendees or not. It is unusual to find a person with such high moral tenets having such a sympathetic understanding of the practical ethical dilemmas of others, but Miss Allam proved to be a rock on which others could depend in times of trouble.

Transition to Emanuel School

After all that had happened between September 1939 and July 1940, when I resumed working for the Selborne Estate for a number of weeks, the following weeks in September 1940 proved to be another, perhaps rather unexpected, culture shock. Despite our youthfulness, most of our minds tended to be in a turmoil, what with the disaster at Dunkirk bringing scores of army ambulances to the local hospitals, together with the formation of the LDV, into which a number of us were drawn as messenger boys or runners, between sections of elderly men wielding pitchforks as if they were rifles. Also some of us including me visited London to see our parents before we changed schools, or even in a couple of cases to plead with them to allow them to come home, to leave school and evacuation. The start of the London Blitz changed a few minds, and although not much if anything fell on Battersea in the early stages, the experience for parents was horrifying. I was intrigued during the couple of days I was at home by the shrapnel falling from our own anti-aircraft guns, the sight of the searchlights picking up the silver shapes high above us, and the continuous roar of the 3.8 batteries on Clapham Common. I never saw a German bomber hit by all that firepower, and thought it was a dreadful waste of money and effort, but my father assured me that the Ack-Ack was a deterrent and a distraction. He was thankful that George had decided to spend the summer holiday helping on a farm and in the hopfields, taking advantage of Mr Pride’s generosity with his horses, as well.

It was when I had returned to Empshott that I saw my first bomber crash, but unfortunately it was a Bristol Blenheim which came down in Liss Forest with some of its bombs and ammunition on board which provided a fireworks display to outdo any Guy Fawkes night. Later in September we saw many dog fights - the battles between a ridiculously small number of Hurricanes and much larger numbers of Messerschmidts and Heinkels - and a number of German bombers and fighters were shot down and crashed between Portsmouth and Guildford. Sadly, some of the Hurricanes and Spitfires also crashed near Petersfield, and we were insensitive enough to try to get to them before the service units to loot souvenirs, particularly ammunition!

So, the transition from Battersea Central School and its strong cockney working class culture to Emanuel School with its mainly middle class culture proved to be yet a further element of confusion in my mind. By then, of course, I had learned to modify my strong Battersea accent, in fact to speak with a touch of Hampshire burr without taking the mickey out of my local country friends, but it was a shock to come up against the well bred accents of my new class mates. The masters of the school seemed so different as well, and I was rather afraid of them to begin with, although I came to like and respect them all later. Mr Cyril Broom, the Emanuel headmaster, was a member of the so-called Headmasters’ Conference, the association of English Public Schools, and a powerful figure in both personality and intellect. Before I was accepted into the school I had to be interviewed by him, and it was Dr Raine who took me to Petersfield and stayed with me in the office during it. I had the strong impression that I was not exactly the sort of boy that Emanuel expected, and Mr Broom made much of the fact that I was entering the school three years later than normal. Dr Raine emphasised my native intelligence, speed of learning and diligence, but I was not accepted for what I wanted - the arts, languages and classics side of the school structure - as I had no knowledge of Latin, little French and no History! It was decided, and it lowered my already low morale, that I would join the Science form, 3Sc, with boys who were a year younger than I, and that I had to face up to doing the equivalent of five years work in two and a half years before taking the London Matriculation and General Schools Certificates in 1943.

The other problem was school clothing. As I have mentioned earlier, there was no doubt that Lord Selborne, Dr Raine and Miss Allam had bought certain items of clothing for me, and I had managed to buy trousers and shoes from my earnings, but now I needed a proper cap and school blazer (and, later, rugby kit and boots). Also the boys in my year were expected to wear long grey trousers, and I had only short ones! At the start of each school year a representative from Harrods visited the school to take measurements for the clothing and equipment required by the new boys, and the fact that the school had been evacuated made no difference to this tradition. New boys were sent in classroom order over to the Blue Anchor pub (opposite to Churchers College to which Emanuel had been evacuated) where a room had been put at the disposal of two or three Harrods salesmen. Thus, at gone fourteen, I found myself queuing with a crowd of giggling eleven year-olds; who were ordering winter and summer jackets, sports gear for rugby, cricket, fives, and athletics, with expense being of no concern. When my turn came, I asked what the cost of the black jacket would be, and was horrified to be told it was eight guineas - "but of course your parents will be invoiced". At the time my father was being paid thirty-five shillings a week, so would have no chance of paying such a bill, but a jacket I had to have. The cap if I remember was over a pound and that was added to the invoice, but I asked the gentleman when he measured me for the jacket to obtain the next size up, so that it would be loose on me. He looked surprised, but said nothing, for as I later found out the customer at Harrods is always right, regardless of his age. That was a good decision of mine for that jacket, with judicious cleaning and repairs, lasted me for the three and a half years I was at the school. I wrote to Dad to say what had happened, sent a PO to pay for the cap, and promised to pay something when my grant came through. He managed to pay Harrods’ invoice by borrowing the money from the Tallyman and repaying a halfcrown a week for the next eighteen months!

The Harrods’ trousers for me were about three pounds, but I decided that they were unnecessary, in view of the grey short ones I had bought from my gardening earnings. Again the look of surprise, but with the well-bred silence of the Harrods’ man, he accepted that my order was complete. When I started school the next week, my jacket was ready and I thought I would now be one of the crowd, but as the only member of the third year in short trousers I became the butt of ridicule of the younger lads, although I must admit the majority of my own classmates accepted me as I was. One fortunate circumstance was that one lad in my form was Ted Levy who was with me at Ethelburga Street primary school, but who had obtained a scholarship to Emanuel when he was eleven. We renewed friendship and he became very supportive right throughout, until I joined the Service in 1944. (When I met him again, in 1948, he had changed his name to Leigh in 1945 in case the Germans took him prisoner, but I hesitated to remind him that he looked like the traditional Jew!)

My first term at Emanuel was almost horrific in so many ways: to start with I had to ride my County bike seven and a half miles to Churchers College by nine o’clock each morning including Saturdays, then the ride back to Empshott after school finished at half past five, in the rain, snow and ice. Then, much of the lessons were unintelligible to me during the initial few weeks, until I was able to borrow books from the masters. The amount of homework I had to cope with was unbelievable, but the masters were most considerate once they realised how conscientious I was in wanting to catch up with the work that the classes were doing. I was fortunate in being able to remain with the Mortimers, as they were very encouraging, and the facilities for doing the work were good, with a separate table and paraffin gas lamp. I certainly would not have been able to cope had I been at either the Chappells or the Randalls billets.

Eventually I had to cash some of my savings to buy a pair of unofficial grey long trousers from Petersfield, which near enough seemed to match the Harrods ones. When my grant came through at Christmas I finally bought rugby kit and replacement shoes, shirts, socks, and even pyjamas, and began to feel civilised. I also learned to control my speech, such that at school, at Church, and when talking to the "posh" area of the village, I adopted a neutral accent as much as I could. But when with my evacuee friends I allowed my natural London tongue to return, but not as broad or coarse as it was, and when with the village lads it was tempered with a burr, so successfully that one or two strangers thought I was country born and bred. Often I was brought up short, an example being when Mr Mearns the English master got me to read a passage from Shakespeare. It contained the expression "I cannot hide my dull soul from you" and I apparently spoke it as "my dole sole", and he tried several times to get me to pronounce it correctly, but I misunderstood what he was getting at until he told another lad to read it, and then got me to repeat it afterwards. I learned a lesson that day in mimicry, and practised passages from books aloud with Mrs Mortimer listening and criticising.

I have often said that I never wanted to leave school, and on reflection I see no reason to change my mind on that. My period at Emanuel was exceptionally hard work, with little or no leisure time and virtually no socialising. In fact some lads used to think, and occasionally comment that they thought, I was "queer" because I had no girl friends. Whereas many of class mates were able to go to evening dances with girls, play tennis or other recreational activities, I was either slogging away at homework or extra study, or doing a bit of gardening or farming work to bring in a little more cash. But I thoroughly enjoyed my schooling. The first term was the most difficult one, and I came a lowly fifteenth in class at the term end, but thereafter for the next three years I was mainly top of the form (or on one occasion second) at each term examination.

Schooldays and Social Life

I suppose that I have very few true regrets, looking back over my life. The three that do come to mind are: not being able to attend university; being ashamed of my parents at one stage, and not being able to marry Rina MacDonald. The first was partially compensated for by night school study over fourteen years after coming out of the army, to gain a first degree and then a master’s equivalent. The second I rectified when I was appointed a manager in the factory, in which my father worked, and could show how proud I was of him. The third was snatched from me, and was entirely out of my control, but it did make me think how much I had lost in my youth compared with the average teenager then, and even more so now.

I realised, as early as 1940 not yet 15, that a social life was important to any human being, but also that it was critical to decide on one’s priorities in life - where did one wish to go in the future and how to get there. In the early days of evacuation, from September 1939, both the school and its teachers, and the organising elements of the villages, tried hard to ensure that we had plenty to do after school hours. In Hawkley the Social Club provided outlets for youthful energies, and in Empshott the Village Hut was opened to us for games, reading, homework and play-acting in the evenings. We became quite expert at Monopoly, Billiards and Chess, and if no masters were present, then some of the lads showed their maturity (and ignorance!) and attitudes to authority by smoking cigarettes. I still wonder where they got them from and how they afforded them, but the sheer acrid smell put me off, as well as my conscience telling me it was wrong, even if I did not know why, other than our ages.

Whist drives were pleasant occasions, relatively quiet, even though there were the odd acrimonious sniping between partners. I took to whist very quickly, and found that I became in demand as a partner, particularly by some old (to me) women. It was my mathematical brain that enabled me to calculate the percentages of certain hands or certain cards being held according to the way in which people played. Thus, although I had never heard the word "finesse", I acquired a reputation for being an expert at finessing - actually all one needed was a good memory for who played what and which cards had already emerged.

Unfortunately, or otherwise, the pressure of schoolwork and the need to take examinations earlier than normally scheduled demanded more and more study in the evenings and weekends. Financial pressure also required me to obtain part-time work to cope with the costs of clothing and sports equipment. The latter became critical when I ran for the House cross-country team and did well, although I had to run in normal school clothing and consequently ruined my shoes. I was selected to run for the School team against local colleges and Southampton University, so not only did I need a new pair of school shoes, but also proper cross-country kit.

Whilst the other lads were finding pleasurable relationships with the local girls, I was working hard at my books, on nearby farms or for the post office. The expression "queer" did not have the connotation then that it has today, and many thought that I was a queer lad, having to work so much of the time. By the time I was sixteen even Mrs Prince the postmistress was pulling my leg about my not having a girl friend, and asking me if I were a misogynist. I did know what the word meant, and agreed with her, keeping a serious face. As the post office was the major transmitter (and I suspect often the source) of village gossip, I soon found that all the local girls had been informed that I was a woman hater.

My first actual intimation of this was when one of the servants from Stairs Hill House, a very nubile girl of just sixteen, invited me to walk her home from the bus stop a mile and a half away, when she returned from a visit to her mother at Bordon. The reason she gave was that she was frightened of walking along the lane in the dark. When I told her I was too busy studying for an exam, she promised that I would find it worth my while. Naively, I thought that meant she would pay me a few pence, so I agreed. I met her off the bus and accompanied her back to her job, suffering all sorts of innuendo and subtle hints about her loneliness, which I had to ignore, and at the end there was not a penny to defray my shoe leather!

Then one evening, walking back from the late service at church, a girl of doubtful reputation, aged no more than seventeen, invited me to walk with her, assuring me that I would thoroughly enjoy myself. In fact she even described some of the "pleasures" that would await me. I now had an inkling of what was in the wind - who could be the first girl to seduce the misogynist! Thus, although I was not actually on my guard for the next candidate, I derived quite some amusement in observing the manoeuvres of the girls, including those from neighbouring villages. My two special friends, Tom, and Arthur thought I was quite mad not to grasp my opportunities, and perhaps I was for my almost antisocial attitude carried through much of my life.

The next two or three girls I promised I would go out with, then after one meeting I would ditch them, further gaining the reputation that I was uncomfortable with female company. Two awkward situations arose when a couple of young mothers indicated that they would like my company, and that experience decided me that it was no longer a game to be played between periods of work. Thereafter, it was homework and money earning that took all my time - no socialising at all.

My priority always was to excel at school, then secondarily at running, and as it happened neither was completely achieved, because my age was awkward! I was too old to finish the exams before call-up and then too old to volunteer after my HSC and InterBSc exams, which I had to take a year early! Then, once I had joined MI 8 there was no time for leisure, and the two years 1944 and 1945 were cram full of activity until after the end of the War in Europe.

But back to the alleged misogynist - in 1943 a family was evacuated to Empshott, and I fell deeply and irrevocably in love with the eldest daughter, but found myself powerless to do anything about it until I was sent on sick leave after one of our hectic operations in early 1945. I was not quite amused when later I found that Rina had informed all and sundry in the village of our relationship, and that the postmistress then spread the word that the misogynist had finally been caught!

October 5th, 2002.

Dear Cliff,

I was surprised to see my 1938 poem Jane the Brig on this website, and it reminded me of the poem (see below) I wrote for the Empshott/Hawkley Church Magazine, which I submitted to the Housman poetry competition in about 1996. I have managed to dig out the old disc (it was on Wordstar 4 or 5) on which I stored it, but then had a job converting it - using WS Win 2.0, but it was not very successful in its layout. Anyway I managed to fiddle it manually.

Anyone who walked from the Hut to Hawkley will recognise the place names, and the huge beech in stanza eleven is still in place, after 63 years, looking even more insecure. As you walk from Home Farm at the Grange, down Stone Hill, just before the steepest part, the road bends right and the beech is on your left, surmounting large broken blocks of chalkstone. We initially used to run past it, as it seemed it was about to topple on to us. And that reminds me of Charlie Burcham, one of our tearaways: he borrowed or begged an old bike, which had flat tyres and no brakes. The reason for the flat tyres was that it had no inner tubes. Johnny and I collected a mass of grass, straw, and leaves and packed the tyres with them until they were near solid. Charlie then rode the bike down the hill; just managing to turn the three corners, but then crashed on the fourth by the old barn on the left!

Repairs were out of the question.

You are probably aware that I have a filled photo album consisting mainly of snaps taken from the 80's onwards of our meets at Empshott, Hawkley and Selborne, but there are also some small photos of evacuees such as Johnny Yates, his brother, Harry Rustell, Stan Creed and Bill Eastland, circa 1939/40, Some small photos of Peter Crofts, Peter Wright, Maurice Gatward and Liz Jelley were given me by Stan Creed some years ago. Also stuck therein are photos of me and Tom Cowell in uniform circa 1944/5, and one or two after we were commissioned. One family billeted at Sir Arthur's in Lythanger, Empshott, was the MacDonalds, a mother and her five children, Rina, Sandy, Elsie, Willie and George.

We also started meeting up for reunion lunches as from 1989 onwards, on Sundays, until my health intervened. Sandy lives at Liss, but is unable to attend Saturday functions. Ron Rustell also lives at Liss and has attended a couple of reunions - he was the younger brother of Harry and was a PoW for a few years, then married Ida Windsor on his release. Ida lived in the hillside cottages adjacent to Hawkley Church, but unfortunately died a couple of years ago.

When I commenced writing a monthly article for the Church Magazine, following the interest in the Address I gave at Miss Allam's Memorial Service, I was surprised at the welcome it received, even as far away as Selborne. Whether I can dig out some of those, I do not know yet, but I do have the first one that the Vicar of Hawkley requested when Miss Allam died. As with all things there are a couple of errors (Johnny put me right on where we landed at Petersfield, not in Liss Station as I fondly imagined for many years!). The computer I had then was a retirement present from my staff in 1990 - an Apricot PC30 which stood me in good stead until I got this one in 1997/8 - but it used W/S 4 and 5 and although I have a converting programme, the conversions make their formats higgledy-piggledy! However, I can still salvage most letters and articles from them.

Do not forget, that although I stayed in Empshott until 1944, I had left BCS in mid- 1940, so rarely took part in BCS functions, but did participate in the Empshott village plays, shows and Church functions. In 1943 I became the Sergeant major of the BCS cadet platoon, taking them to Dogmersfield Camp in 1944; Tom was the sergeant and there were a couple of corporals that I have forgotten (we also had to link with other cadet platoons for that). How I became a W011 I cannot understand, as I was actually a corporal in the Emanuel OTC at the time in Petersfield, and a part-time weapons instructor for the Home Guard (experience that stood me in good stead when I joined the Intelligence Services in 1944 - I did not really need basic training!).

I never really met up with old-BCS lads after school, except Dick Dickeson when he was in the Marines, but was in constant contact with Tom Cowell and Arthur Govus, and even more so with the Empshott villagers and my old hostess' family. Tom met with Butch Luetchford and Cyril Bridgen in Jerusalem when he was with the Mid-East Forces in 1946/7 - there ought to be some stories there of interest to other ex-evacuees?

Well, I must now get on with my homework for next Tuesday (I am chairman of the Pendrell Hall Writers' Group) and pray that my health holds up enough for me to do at least that for another few months!

All the best for now, and may you receive many tales from the old BCS boys!

Yours Sincerely,

Charles J Sammonds.

THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY ROOD, EMPSHOTT

(Reflections of an evacuee, after 56 years)

See, from Reed's farm, cross the dell,

The sweep of pasture to the graves

Where in peace the spirits dwell

Whilst the living laud their praise.

 

Graze the cows before the stones;

Inside, unseeing, people pray

Their repentance that atones

Deeds that shame the holy day.

 

Always there is time for prayer

For praise, for thanks and self-renewal,

Cleansed of guilt, removed despair,

Bathed in aura wonderful.

 

Prayers that rise to blacken'd beam,

Praise that rings the Norman wall:

Fearful hopes comprise that dream

Lest it fades beyond recall.

 

Where I kneel the adze-hewn pew

Subdues the glass stained light,

Reflects the faith reborn anew;

Again will hope bum bright.

 

Where I kneel the morning sun

Will glist the Holy Rood;

It lifts my soul, its bonds undone,

And freed from earthly mood.

 

A-framed by leaves, that church idyll,

Its lantern spire to Heav'n strives,

Borne by souls that frever will

Contemplate their earthly lives.

 

Not haughty be that looming spire

Nor sad the lattice that enclose

The duet bells that toll the dire

Call, to say farewell - repose.

 

Depart, depart, my comrades past;

Now men, but boys when I a boy.

The hills, the woods, they us outlast,

To be remembered with such joy.

 

To the South awaits the Grange,

To the West the farm called Home;

Further yet the Nore Hill range

Over which the orchids roam.

 

Straggles, under Nore, the Green,

Reached by way the hill named Stone,

Where the mighty beech is seen

Looming o'er its broken throne.

 

The gnarled old yews, atop Nore Hill,

Uplift my soul, the aspect seen

Below, the Oasts, the Church, fulfil

The yearnings of that lasting dream.

 

The dream begins at Empshott Hut,

To Reed's, Lythanger and Hill Place

Until we reach the Holy Rood

To understand the need for grace.

 

Thus the ancient buttress stands

Imbued with aeons of prayer

Of simple, honest, toiling hands

Which sought salvation there.

 

A haven, yes, of peace, and rest,

Uplifts the surging spirit,

To quell the torment of the flesh

To sense the infinite.

 

The men, those lads when I a lad,

Have lives now better tempered

By joyous thoughts, reflections glad,

Of place and friends remembered.

Charles J Sammonds.

I promised Harry Withers the enclosed a long time ago, but have just managed to get round to transcribing the bits and pieces that Dick Raine (son of Dr Raine) gave me in July 1999, the last time I was able to attend the BCS evacuees' reunion. I started the reunions with only three of us (plus a couple of wives) in 1985, having kept in touch with my old billet hostess and her family from 1944 (when I was called up) until they all died off. It had built up to 12 to 15 when I handed the job over to Harry (ill health) in 1997, and you know what a marvelous job he has made of it since then!

I was amazed, considering the regard we had for our Battersea Central School masters, that not one of the manuscript or typed lists was dated! The First September is easily identified for the Order of March, but the billeting List 1 had to deduce from what I knew of the lads and their billets at the time. Looking down the lists, I became a bit nostalgic! Daisy (William) Eastland was a good friend of mine (despite his crashing his Bike on its first day, and getting Johnny Yates into serious trouble) and I was sorry to learn that his house had been destroyed and that he had had to be rescued from the rubble. 

When my wife and I were down in Empshott in 1992 or so, we quite accidentally attended Peter Hassell's funeral. I was asked to give the address at Miss Allam's memorial service, and have been in touch with John Allam, her nephew, ever since. It turned out that he was at Churcher's College in Petersfield at the same time I was at Emanuel, which had been evacuated there. (Charles won a 13 plus exam to the grammar school Emanuel, but stayed in Empshott and cycled 7.5 miles to Petersfield and back each day)

I must congratulate you on the Hawkley web site - it is really extensive, and perhaps the only criticism I have is that there is little about the Empshott based evacuees and the Hut in which we did our afternoon classes and evening homework's, (or played Monopoly!).  Incidentally, for over a year I wrote a monthly article for the Church Magazine on the subject of the evacuation, our behaviour, and its ramifications. I sent Harry about one year's efforts in case they proved of interest to the local papers. I also sent them to Mr. Wallower; the Petersfield Post features editor, but never found out if he used them!

Well, congratulations again, and I trust that this year's reunion (2002) will be even better than previously.

I am afraid that my health precludes my coming down, sadly.

With sincere regards,

Charles J Sammonds - June 2002

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