life
THE ISLAND AT WAR 1939 - 1945
houses, empty houses, camps and hostels.
A summary of accommodation in
Newport notes the number of habitable
rooms, the number of persons ordinarily
resident and the possible number of
persons who can be accommodated in
each building.
Visitor’s Record forms were used
to find accommodation for the
evacuees. Billeting officers asked if the
householder was willing to take charge
of unaccompanied children or could they
supply beds and bedding for the number
of children to be accommodated. Not
everyone was able to take evacuees, some
people were too old and infirm to be
foster parents and one entry reads “Mrs.
X will be filled up with her husband’s
nieces”.
Village halls and schools were taken over
to be used as reception centres and local
women provided refreshments for the
children. Members of local Boy Scout
groups worked long hours to make up
the carrier bags containing the rations
for the children and delivered the food
parcels to reception areas for distribution.
Each parcel consisted of a can of corned
beef, a can of evaporated milk, a can of
condensed milk, a large bar of chocolate,
a packet of plain biscuits, a can of soup,
a can of fruit, a small tin of red salmon, a
box of Kraft cheese portions, and a lump
of cheese.
David Martin was a teacher at Barton
Boys School, at the time a reserved
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occupation though later he was called up
for active service. David remembers the
chaos at Ryde pier, travelling with the
children by train to Newport and being
told to take a group of youngsters up one
side of Staplers Road. It took a long time
to find billets for all the evacuees as some
of the host families had changed their
minds and refused to take them though a
billeting officer could threaten compulsion
to secure lodging. “The next day it was
discovered they should have gone to
Freshwater and they were all taken back”,
David says.
But many Islanders welcomed the
children into their homes. “There were
six of us, three girls, three boys and
Mum and Dad in our family”, says Daisy
Holbrook. They had two boys, Reg and
George, billeted on them and Daisy still
keeps in touch with Reg. Rosemary
Smith remembers her mother had
several evacuees from Portsmouth and
at Christmas 1939 the parents of Hazel
and Peter Lomax stayed with her family.
Rosemary has tried without success to
trace members of the Lomax family in
Portsmouth.
Some of the evacuees, including
Frances Sallis and her mother, were sent
to Gurnard Pines Holiday Camp where
they slept six children and one adult to
each chalet. She remembers there was
a shortage of water and having to share
someone’s bath water, having a grey dollop
of porridge for breakfast and seeing
children with “their heads bound up in
bandage-turbans oozing horrid yellow
ointment.”
Lots of children had to be treated for
head lice but the myth that all evacuees
lived in slums, were dirty and had nits and
fleas caused them unnecessary heartbreak.
On the other hand it was a culture shock
for some of the evacuee children to find
they had to walk down the garden to the
outside privy, that there was no electricity
or gas and water had to be fetched from a
pump or well.
Frances and her mother were sent from
Gurnard to a reception centre at the
Board School in Newport. Picture the
scene - the local residents faced with
taking in a stranger’s child, the evacuees
waiting for someone to say “I’ll take that
one.” Then the unwanted few would have
to be hiked around the streets by teachers
who knocked on doors and pleaded for
people to take the children in. Before
each child left the centre they were given a
brown paper bag with a toothbrush, a tin
of Gibbs toothpaste, a tin of corned beef,
a Kit-Kat and a bag of sweets.
Many towns and villages in the
reception areas found their populations
greatly increased when the evacuees
arrived and because the village schools
were overcrowded a split shift system
was introduced. The Log Book at
Carisbrooke Mixed School records:
“September 18th. The school reopened
this morning a fortnight late and in
unique circumstances. War having broken
out between this country and Germany,
the evacuation scheme put into force on
September 1st has meant a very large
influx of Portsmouth children. Scholars
of the Wimborne Road Portsmouth Junior
Council School billeted in this district
now attend this school on a ‘shift’ system.
For the present, at all events, the local
children use the premises from 8.45am
to noon and the visitors from 1pm to
4.15pm.”
Frances Sallis had been living at Barton
before she was moved to Clatterford Road
in Carisbrooke. She says her morning
school sessions were held in The Institute
in Carisbrooke and the afternoons in
the village school at the top of the hill.
“There were no school dinners or canteens
so we all went home at noon,” she says.
During the war Jean Billson worked
in Gillings bakery at Totland. She
remembers the evacuees being billeted in
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