A Brief Note On The Text.

When telling stories or writing accounts about historical events in the vernacular people often switch from the past into the present tense, as in;

' I was walking home from work one day. All of a sudden this man comes up to me and says…. '

This phenomenon, called the historical present, has a long history in English literature and is found in numerous other languages, both ancient and modern. Linguists have sometimes suggested that the historical present makes stories more vivid, primarily by bringing past actions into the immediate present. I hope what the experts say is true, for I have chosen to record this account of my Liverpool childhood and wartime evacuation  in the historical present tense.

I was born in the working-class district of Liverpool known as Walton and Eton Street, where I lived, was right beside the Everton Football Club ground. Being quite close to the Liverpool Docks, the area was (rightly) considered to become a prime target for Hitler's bombers in the event of armed conflict.

In 1939, when I am four years old, just before the outbreak of the Second World War, the government puts into operation a plan for the total evacuation of all the children from what are considered to be the exposed, industrial, urban areas of Britain's larger towns and cities. The zones that are seen as targets for the Luftwaffe are to be completely cleared of children. The German Airforce has wreaked terrible devastation upon the civilian populations of Barcelona and Guernica in the Spanish Civil War, bombing civilian areas and machine-gunning people in the streets. The British establishment has no wish to see our fighting men demoralised by the deaths of their children from German bombs or bullets, back in their hometowns, whilst they're away fighting in the trenches.

From as early January and February of 1939, government-appointed Billeting Officers[1] have been knocking on the doors of the householders, cottagers and farmers in Britain's rural areas. They have prepared a list of suitable accommodation for the children who will have to be found homes should war break out.

It is a gigantic undertaking and in retrospect, a very efficient one. One must admire the organisers responsible, who in spite of the lack of modern-day communications and computers, manage to pull off this ambitious enterprise with only the old fashioned, operator- controlled telephones and the postal service.

Looking back on it all now, when I think about the evacuation, I don't regret my wartime experience. I'm one of two million children who were sent off to the safety of the countryside to avoid the German bombing.

When the time comes, on the 1st of September 1939, this huge exodus of children from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool etc goes like clockwork. One and a half million children are transported on the first day.

I'm four years old when my mother receives a letter and a form from the headmaster of Gwladys Street School. It informs her that those who want to have their children evacuated for the duration of the war could do so. My mother, who  works full time in the Dunlop Rubber Company factory  in Rice Lane. Walton as a machinist stitching the canvass uppers of rubber footwear at the time, accepts the offer.

On The first of September 1939, our parents take us children to school, with a little gas mask hanging around our necks in a brown cardboard box. Some of the gas masks are like Walt Disney characters - highly colourful in pink and light blue in order to encourage the more nervous children to wear them. Most however, are smaller versions of the grotesque adult model. They're made from black rubber, sinister to look at and uncomfortable to wear. They smell strongly of the vulcanising process, and it is difficult to breathe. We all have our packed lunches wrapped in newspaper, and most kids have a bottle of pop sticking out of their pockets. There are stout brown labels tied to our coats with our name and address written in black ink. Most of the evocative wartime photographs of evacuees show the children wearing these dehumanising labels. There's something pathetic about these ticketed little waifs.

We're marched through the streets down to the tram sheds at Spellow Lane, where we're loaded onto the waiting electric tram cars. Soon we're swaying and clattering our way down to Lime Street Station. There in that cavernous, arching, echoing, edifice the last goodbyes are said. Weeping parents stand back helplessly and watch, as their little ones board the train. Then there are the tear-streaked faces peering from the carriage windows, small fists bang on the glass in desperation and terror. Eventually the dreaded moment arrives as the train jolts into motion. The whistle blows, the steam hisses from the blackened underbelly beneath the engine's wheels and clouds of smoke obscures the crowd of desolate parents who huddle on the platform. The train gathers speed - some parents run alongside the compartment with red, wild eyes - then they fall back and are gone. The babbling, echoing confusion of the station fades from view as we enter the long, gloomy tunnels, hewn from solid rock, that leads us out of the dark city towards the sunlight and the green fields of the Cheshire plain and the south.

My mother doesn't come to the station to see me off. She says that she just couldn't face it.

The steam trains would seem very old fashioned to modern eyes. They have single compartment non-corridor carriages with leather straps to adjust the window height. They have wooden slatted seats and woven string luggage racks above. There are framed sepia coloured photographs of well-known British seaside resorts. The initial excitement of the train journey keeps us children occupied. The separation from our parents is somewhat blunted by the rapid succession of exciting things that are happening to us.

As we settle down however, the mood changes, and some children start crying for their mums or dads. The schoolmistress who accompanies us is very kind and good at comforting the distressed children. The train proceeds slowly south, although none of us children are aware of such geographical concepts, we're simply in a carriage, and the fields and bridges merely slide past the window - like the magic moving pictures I once saw in Chinese revolving lantern. There's the ubiquitous smell of oranges, (still available in 1939,) and some children have cake.

As the train puffs steadily south, they begin to drop off the end carriage at each subsequent station stop. After many hours and many stops and dropping of many carriages, we arrive at Craven Arms. Here the penultimate carriage is uncoupled and there's only one carriage left - the one attached to the big black puffing engine. As luck would have it, as ensuing events unfold, this is my carriage. Looking out of the window at the sliding plangent of verdant meadows and hayrick, with the acrid but not unpleasant, smell of engine-smoke in my nostrils I can see we're approaching a small station. It is the last stop of the journey.

We have reached our destination. We have arrived at Tenbury Wells. Ironically, Tenbury Wells's railway station is actually in Burford, Shropshire, which is the village on the other side of the Teme Bridge from the market town of Tenbury Wells. An arched bridge forms the border between Shropshire and Worcestershire, therefore, the market town's railway station is in another county.

There's a small knot of people on the platform. A little crowd of officials and kindly Tenbury and Burford folk waiting patiently. After a short delay, when clipboards are flourished and lists are checked and ticked, we're led away in a jaded little crocodile of tired children. We walk down the station hill towards the Rose and Crown, then turn right along the A456. We pass the Turnpike Cottage where Mr Crump lives, and then walk by Sgt. Underhill's the policeman's house towards Burford School. The countryside seems utterly amazing to our young city eyes. Many of us haven't seen a cow, sheep, or a snorting, snuffling pig before. Everything in the city is dark and dirty. Here, the world is bright and the birdsong rings in our ears. The variety of sound is so unlike the monotonous chirping of the house sparrows in our city streets. Now we pass Freddie Cheese's cottage with its goat mooching in the garden, then we pass the Ost Houses with the funny revolving trumpet roofs which swing round to catch the air.

At last, we arrive at Burford Primary School, a red brick late Victorian building with two high pitched slated roofs.

We troop dejectedly into the school hall and are arranged in three rows. Our belongings are dumped on the wooden floor before us. The room smells of furniture polish and chalk.

After while, the local grown-ups come into the room and start walking down the rows of tired children. They stop and talk to a child they like the look of, then leave with the boy or girl in tow. They smile as they pass me, but walk on by. Soon all the choices have been made

Inevitably, I'm left standing alone in the middle of this large hall. The room is probably of average size, but to me it looks enormous. It isn't surprising I'm left to the last, for I'm a very ugly child. I've protruding buckteeth and a cross-eye. I wear tiny silver rimmed spectacles, my hair is dark and spiky and I'm rather shabbily dressed. I wear that ubiquitous upper garment of the streets - a gansey or Guernsey jumper of machine-knitted grey wool. It has a rounded collar with three buttons. Its sleeves are encrusted with snail trails where I've been wiping my nose. I've grey trousers, which reach down just below the knees. My legs are clad in grey woollen stockings that come up to just below the knees. Although I'm so young, I notice the meaningful glances exchanged between the teachers and officials. I sense my rejection and ineluctably I commence to cry. Just at that moment, an elderly couple enters the room. They talk briefly to the small group of officials then walk across to middle of the floor towards me. They stop before me and look down. The woman has a severe puce coloured face, with thin lips and the protruding eyes of a defective thyroid sufferer.

'What's your name Sunny Jim?' She says kindly.

'Jud,' I sniff.

'And how old are you me young nipper?' asks her male companion with a smile.

'Don't know.' I stutter.

The man is very tall and burly. He has iron-grey hair and a drooping grey moustache. He wears a straw trilby hat with a black band.

'Would you like to come and live with Charlie and me?' says the woman.

'OK.' I say shrugging my shoulders.

It is Hobson's choice of course, for they've no alternative - I am after all - the only one left.

For little Jud, these events turn out to be very fortuitous, for the lady and gentleman are Charlie and Edith Horton. Charlie is head gardener at Burford House Gardens, and Edith runs the home. They're to treat me very kindly during my stay in their home, and Edith wants to adopt me as her own son. For the moment however, that all lies in the future.