An Interview with 3 Evacuees from Hull

Kate: So where were you and Margaret billeted in the end, Dennis?
Dennis: We stayed with Arthur & Nellie West at No 5. We were with them until we left Bishop Wilton.

Margaret (on the left) & Dennis with Joan West

Kate: So you came with your Mum did you, Billy?
Billy: No, she came after Dad got called up. I was already in Bishop Wilton with my brother, Arthur. We lived in Dansom Lane in Hull, near Reckitts and the house was bombed so Mam had to find somewhere to live so she said she was going with her sons. So Mam brought my little brother, Alan, who was two weeks old then. Arthur and I were in Hull when he was born.

Arthur (on the left) & Billy King in Bishop Wilton with Alan on the bike

Kate: How did you feel when you first came?
Margaret: I felt scared. I thought that I was going to gypsies!
Billy: I felt apprehensive. The first people we were taken to couldn’t get us in. Then an elderly lady and her husband, Mr and Mrs England, took us in, nearly opposite the Church. They were God’s gift as far as I was concerned because they did look after us. It must have been hard. Me, eight, and my six-year-old brother, Arthur. They were elderly. But I don’t think they could cope. We were only with them for a week or two then we went to Mrs Beulah’s and we stayed there and Mam came out. Then after that bad winter we moved down to the village to Mrs Ware then Mam rented that cottage (No 55) from a gentleman at Skirpenbeck. She only paid a few shillings a week for it. Mr Keep lived next door to us. He died in Pocklington workhouse, it broke my mother’s heart, she thought it was a tragedy. You know Gordon Foster, he lived in the end one [No 52] with his sister, I think they called her Nora. He had a little brother as well whose name I’ve forgotten. Gordon went to live in the back lane, didn’t he? Well, the gardens for those cottages ran through to Major Swain’s garden. Huge gardens.
Kate: Yes, Gordon lives in Major Swain’s bungalow.
Billy: I’ll tell you one of the families I remember best for kindness itself, that was the Campbells. There was Lorna, she played the organ, and Clive. Someone called Pater stayed with them. He was like a brother. There was Aunty, Lorna’s Aunty. They were a wonderful family, kindness itself.

From the Chapel looking down the village. The Wests lived in the right hand side of the cottages in the centre of this photograph

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