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Don McDouall was evacuated from London during World War II when he was five years old. He was sent to the small country village of East Hanney to live with Grans and Grampy at a house called Tamarisk. When the war ended nobody came to take him home and he was sent to 'Poundcroft', a children's home in the village of East Hanney and then to 'The Homestead' children's home in Bourne End. He now lives in Australia.
After being given the choice of living in another children's home or returning to Grans and Gramps in East Hanney, I had chosen the latter. It was a glorious day in the early springtime of the year 1947 when I returned to East Hanney and stood once again on the familiar railway platform. I ran over the pedestrian bridge to the other side of the lines. With my heart in my throat choking me, I gazed once more upon the pond it was just the same. I was free at last.
Clutching my worldly possessions in a cardboard container I found my self staring at the 'Pound' gardens. I had returned to my last place of happiness. I could see a lady on the lawn but it wasn't my old friend the Matron. I could see the Gardener Mr Cox but I was too shy to speak to him.
Then I found myself back at 'Tamarisk'. Everything looked much the same, but smaller. Even Grans looked smaller!
I settled back into village life. Gramps bought me a pair of long army trousers and I wore these to school. The teachers were happy to see me. I will always remember that first day, returning to the school that I loved so much. I had long trousers and I was free perhaps for me it was for the first time.
I was only back three weeks when Grans Lyford became very ill. Her daughter Doss came home to look after her but Grans didn't get better. In fact she got worse. They took her off to Radcliffe Infirmary and that night she died. I felt sorry for Grampy, for his loss
Aunt Doss came home to look after her dad and I stayed on. Perhaps, like her mother, aunt Doss needed the government money required for putting a roof over my head. Things really improved for me after Grans died. I now slept in a proper bed, which I shared the bed with Gramps, in a proper room. Suddenly life was at its very best since my leaving the 'Pound'.
I excelled at school, making a lot of friends, boys that I had known before I had gone away. Heather and her brother Alan picked up our friendship much where we had dropped it just after the war. I remember the fuss when girls started to wear slacks to school! Poor Mrs Short couldn't believe it!
By now children were going to places of interest on school outings, like the colleges in Oxford. We went to educational movies like Shakespeare's 'Henry V'. I even have a vague memory of visiting Windsor Castle.
I had a crush on a girl called Diana, or Dippy as we called her. I first noticed her when I sat behind her in class five. The school desktop was on hinges and Dippy's hair use to hang down her back, sometimes spilling on to my side of the desk. My friend Flynny suggested I put Dippy's hair in the gap, as it would be a laugh when she went to stand up. Stupidly I thought so too. Sure enough when she stood up she screamed. It was a wonder I didn't break her neck. I got a good belting from Mrs Short with the cane.
One time friend and I had a gripe with an older boy, who was giving us a hard time. To get our own back we stretched a length of wire across the lane, one end tied to a tree while we held the other end down in a ditch hidden from view. As the boy came along the road on his bike we pulled on the wire, catching the boys bike just above the front wheel. He came tumbling off, but unfortunately Dippy came around the corner on her bike and she came off too! We didn't get found out but I was always scared that we would.
One Guy Falkes night we were doing silly things like putting 'jumping jacks' fireworks in peoples letterboxes! As usual Dippy wasn't allowed out, her parents were very strict, so we brought the firework show to her. I lit a rocket then aimed it at the girl's bedroom window. Away shot the rocket, showering my bare hand with burning chemicals. I had a very sore hand and Dippy's mum and dad weren't a bit amused.
I no longer went to church, except on days like Ash Wednesday when the whole school had to go. But on Sunday nights most of us young kids went to the chapel near the pond. This was a Methodist church, nothing like church that we knew. They sang cheery hymns and the preacher gave chirpy down to earth sermons and didn't get dressed up.
You got your blue attendance book signed and had your behavioral stars stuck onto the appropriate page. All this allowed you to take part in the chapel's privileges. We didn't go to for religious reasons but for the privileges that you got for attending. About three times a year there was a party, what we called a 'Bun-fight', where you could eat cake and jelly and drink Sherbet lemonade until you were sick.
You got a present at Christmas time, usually a book, sometimes socks. But best of all were the Saturday visits to the seaside in the summertime. All the kids and a few adults would board a bus and go to seaside resorts like Weymouth, Bognor Regis or Brighton.
This was the only time most of us saw the sea. We would go paddling, pick up stones and shells, go to the Penny arcades and I would nearly always buy some tame mice or white rats. Grampy let me keep them down the end of the garden, in a small shed I had made.
We bought sticks of peppermint rock and got sick on pink candy floss. We gorged ourselves on fish and chips that were eaten out of newspaper. We bought greasy brown paper bags of winkles and pulled the guts out with the pin provided. Making crude gestures to the girls as we ate them. Then as night fell we all would all clamber back onto the bus and became boisterous and perhaps stealing a quick kiss from a girl!
Don McDouall, Australia, 2001
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