An Interview with 3 Evacuees from Hull

From the Chapel looking up the village. Garforth’s is the one with the white garage doors.

Dennis: This used to be Garforth’s. He was a local preacher. Just at the back of Garforth’s I remember the biggest apples you’ve ever seen in your life. These geese [on the photograph], they used to frighten me. There were some big white ones and they’d attack you. With their wings opened out. Whenever they saw me they went wild.
Margaret: Our mother and father were chapel so I suppose we had to go to a chapel family.
Mike: Did you go to the Chapel at Bishop Wilton?
Margaret: We lived in the Church and Chapel!
Dennis: Chapel in the morning, Church in the morning, Church in the afternoon and Church at night.
Margaret: We used to go to Chapel first, to the Sunday School, then go up to the Church, come back and have our dinner.
Mike: Were you in the choir at all?
Margaret: I was in the choir.
Billy: I was in the choir with my brother Arthur.
Dennis: I got kicked out, me. I was caught throwing a hymnbook at somebody.
Billy: You know what he was kicked out for? For missing!
Mike: Were you disappointed, Dennis?
Dennis: No, not really there was always plenty to do.
Mike: You had a gown to put on?
Billy: Yes, cassock and surplice. The girls wore a cap. Nancy Newby [now Nancy Hutchinson] used to play the organ.

Freda Clint outside Bishop Wilton Church in her choir gown. Freda moved from York to stay with her grandparents, Mr & Mrs Tom Clint, during the war.

Mike: Billy, I knew you were in the choir because I spoke to Nancy and she remembers you singing a solo.
Billy: I used to go to Lorna Campbell for music lessons.
Margaret: Mr Braithwaite was the choirmaster.
Billy: He used to live here [shows it to Kate on photo, No 4, Sherwood House]
Billy: I remember where Barry Trotter stayed. Who did he stay with? We called him Uncle Ben.
Mike: That’s right, Benny Wilkinson and there was a cobbler called Charlie Cullum.
Billy: He was a clever cobbler - he used to hand sew all the boots. They were solid boots and all the farmers wore them. He used to mark round the existing boot and make them from there. They used to last a lifetime did a pair of his boots. But Uncle Ben, he was a bit of a gamekeeper, wasn’t he? Barry’s Dad used to go shooting with him at weekends during the war. Also, Colin Gagen’s Dad used to come through sometimes. Ben’s garden used to go back to the back lane and his apples were marvellous. They were short trees and you could go up and say, there’s a nice one and pick it. If my mother had known she would have been mad.
Billy: I tell you who I’ve never seen since Bishop Wilton, Harry Fussey, can you remember him?
Dennis: I got in touch with him recently. He would love to come on 21st July [Evacuee Day at Bishop Wilton, 2001] but his granddaughter is getting married. [In fact, Harry Fussey did turn up on the day but he was only able to make it for the dance in the evening and therefore missed a lot of the returning evacuees who had left by then. Nevertheless, it was good to meet him, especially as he had been remembered by Billy & Dennis in this interview.]
Billy: Harry used to live next-door but one to us with a Miss Robinson, a lovely lady she was, an ex-nurse. She had a wonderful personality, very straight-laced. She took this little lad in and he was a little devil and she used to smack his backside with the flat side of a hairbrush. He used to ask for it, honestly.
Dennis: Harry remembers Barry Trotter and Colin Gagen, who died seven years ago.
Kate: Colin’s sister, Audrey, has been in touch and all being well she will be coming on 21st July with Colin’s wife.
Margaret: I remember Audrey Gagen and Colin.
Dennis: Colin’s mother made beautiful currant cakes, you know.

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