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3rd September 1939

Old Boy

Old Boy

master brummie
Hi All,

Who can remember where they were this time last year? I cannot but I do know that 71 years ago today I attended the morning service at Bengeworth Church. It was not that I was a churchgoer or even praying for peace. I had been evacuated to Evesham two days before and our headmaster had decreed that we should all attend church whether we liked it or not.

I have resented that ever since as it meant that I missed Chamberlains speech declaring war, surely a prime moment in history. NIce as Evesham was the lure of Small Heath called me back and I returned home after only a few weeks..

Old Boy
 
I was with my Sister of 14 months and were getting ready for Sunday dinner, I can't remember the speech but I think about how my Mom & Dad must have felt.
 
Don't recall the day Chris,but I know where I was,in our house in Aston,should have been evacuated the day before but didn't go.So I must presume my parents were having their usual Sunday morning row,and I was in the middle of it.:rolleyes:.
My cousin, like you,remembers it she was celebrating her 8th.birthday,with her first trip abroad...Wales...2years evacuation.:)
 
I can't imagine what it must have been like, as a child to be taken away from your family and friends, I suppose if you were with a nice family and out in the country,it could have became an adventure,I hated being away from my family when i was a child,
I have heard the speech many times, as i suppose most people have now.
I wasn't even born then, but 35yrs ago i was having my son, and i remember thinking about it then, and being so glad that i wasn't living it.
I wonder will there ever be complete peace, i know we haven't had a world war since then, but i wonder why it is, when you hear so many say they would love peace throughout the world, and i am sure this has been said from the beginning, why has it never been accomplished.
 
Hello there, I remember it well, I was nine years of age, we gathered round our 0ld Echo set waiting for eleven to come. Later of course we had Coventry boy Rob Wilton
and his saying "The day war broke out my wife said to me, Why dont you join the ARP??? Where oh where have all those years gone!,My brothers all joined up or were
called up, we got issued with ration books etc, my Dad went into the LDV, later Home Guards. People our age must have so many wonderful tales to tell. Bernard
 
I wasnt there but my dad was. He was at the front garden gate looking up the road when the next door neighbour shouted to him "you will be going then" he did and survived,one of the lucky ones,not so his Uncle Frank who is buried in Bayeux cemetary .Dad passed away in December 2009 age 90. Thank you dad and all the others who gave their all for our freedom. I have enjoyed reading Brian David Williams website,it really makes you understand what it must have been like for the ones here, like my mum who worked at the BSA in Small Heath , she was bombed out of her lodgings in Pretoria Road Bordsley Green,Angela.
 
I had a brother three years older than me and also a younger sister whe had congenial heart trouble, my parents let Ray go but not me, I had to look after my sister,
Ray went to Kempsey near Worcester, was billited with some very nice people who treated him like their own son, he sang in the church choir and everything. Bernard
 
My parents lived in Ireland when war broke out, they were going out then, my dad came to England and signed up,not sure of exact dates, they married during the war then my mom came to England,she worked in a factory in Oxford.
They came to Birmingham at the end of the war.
 
I was 4 at the time but can vaguely remember mom and dad, and the neighbours listening to something important on the radio, we played in the back garden. I can remember a night about a year or so later when the Luftwaffe dropped a bomb on our house while I was in it - suppose I should have been evacuated - and now I can't find out why I wasn't....:)
 
I was 9 at the time we had just moved from Sheldon to Shirley, the firm Dad worked for had just completed B'ham Airport and were now starting a large housing project in Shirley, my Mom who was an emotional person was crying and my Dad explained the reason why. Unfortunately she never saw the end of the war as she died in 1943 of breast cancer at age 43. Eric
 
could anyone help me please..
after visiting an uncle he told me some stories of when he was evacuated,im sure the date was 3rd sept 1939,he lived in balsall heath and attended hope street school,he was sent to a village called groby in leicestershire, how could i get any pictures.also he has asked me about an evacuee's meeting in birmingham could anyone shed any light on that at all eg meetings and dates...i would luv to be able to give my uncle some info about this..xx
 
oldMohawk said:
I was 4 at the time but can vaguely remember mom and dad, and the neighbours listening to something important on the radio, we played in the back garden. I can remember a night about a year or so later when the Luftwaffe dropped a bomb on our house while I was in it - suppose I should have been evacuated - and now I can't find out why I wasn't....:)
Click to expand...


Hi old Mohawk,

As you were only 4 you, presumably, was not at school. Pre school children were only evacuated if the mother went as well. This would obviously cause many difficulties, not least the parents being apart so there were not many such evacuations.

Old Boy
 
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