Memory of an evacuee

I was evacuated from Highbury, London, with my school in September 1939.

A year later a fellow evacuee, Elsie Moore, was crying behind a door where we were billeted in St ives, Huntingdonshire. She was about 13 years old and often had to look after us younger ones. I called her a cry baby. Then I was told her brother had died as a result of wounds from machine gun fire when running for a shelter at RAF Kenley. My father took photos of us as evacuees earlier in 1940. They include Elsie and me, Malcolm Stokes. Elsie and her mother attended Remembrance Day services at our local church in Highbury for many years. They lived opposite our school, St John’s Highbury Vale after a landmine had destroyed their previous home. As a result of her brother’s death, her elder sister joined the WAAF as a Fighter Plotter, which I also eventually became during National Service 1952-54 at RAF Box, headquarters of Fighter Command Southern Sector. Service No. 2572599.