An Interview with 3 Evacuees from Hull

Dennis Galloway, his sister Margaret (who became Mrs Whitehouse) & Billy King - from a conversation recorded on 1st July 2001:

Arthur & Billy King prior to being evacuated

Mike: Could you say what you remember about being evacuated and when you left Hull?
Dennis: The first thing I remember is the Chapel in Bishop Wilton, where the shop is now. That’s where we went to. That’s where we were distributed.
Billy: Miss Kirby was our teacher, they lined us all up and Miss Kirby said who of us had to stay together.
Mike: Did all three of you go on the same coach?
Billy: Yes.
Margaret: From Mersey Street school.
Billy: We got segregated in Pocklington.
Margaret: We were checked by a nurse in Pocklington, in a clinic. We got a bus from Mersey Street to Paragon Station then went on a train to Pocklington. I think that the train stopped and delivered children all over.
Mike: You were at Mersey Street but you had no idea where you were going?
Margaret: No, we just knew that we were going to be evacuated.
Kate: So you were 7, Margaret, and Dennis was 6 and you left your Mother and Father?
Margaret: Yes, but I knew I was going to be evacuated a long while before and I used to say to my mother, “I’m not going, I aren’t going to be evacuated.” I was nattering at her all the time, I was real forward. My mother used to say, “Teach Dennis how to tie his shoe laces”! Anything to keep me out of her hair. But I went in the end. It was on Sunday, I believe, and I can even remember what we had for dinner. At Mersey Street there were neighbours there saying goodbye and some of them gave us comics to read. We had to say goodbye to all our relations the day before.
Mike: Parents were asked not to go to the station.
Margaret: Yes, they only saw us on the bus.
Mike: So you ended up in the Chapel at Bishop Wilton.
Margaret: Yes, and Dennis and me were about the last.
Dennis: They didn’t want me!
Margaret: They’d have a girl, but nobody wanted a boy.
Kate: They thought a girl would help but a boy would be trouble!
Billy: Oh I don’t know, a lot of the boys went to work after school. I used to go picking potatoes and carrots. You were supposed to be eleven to do it and you were meant to have a permit, a blue card.
Mike: You used to have time off school for that?
Billy: You had a month in October.
Margaret: They made your school holidays later.
Dennis: It was lot colder weather for carrot picking.
Mike: We were told you were given some carrots.
Billy: Oh you were, they always filled your dinner bag to take home.
Dennis: Then there was hay making, that was a pleasure. Jebsons’ farm is the most memorable part of my time there. They didn’t mind you going on their farm.

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