An Interview with 3 Evacuees from Hull

Mike: I want to know what the girls did.
Margaret: Well, what did I do? We used to go for walks, play about. I used to go about with Joan West and Beaty Coulman, and Lily Pay when she was there. And we used to go and play with Bessy Smith.

Margaret, possibly wearing the same frock as in the photograph of Hull evacuees above

Billy: One of the things with the boys, we were always playing soldiers, which is natural I suppose.

Margaret: I came home in ’44.
Kate: You had scarlet fever, didn’t you? It was in the school log.
Margaret: Yes, I went to Driffield Hospital and then I went back home to Hull.
Kate: So you were left on your own after Margaret went home?
Dennis: Yes, they thought Scarlet Fever was a contagious disease in them days, which it isn't. They fumigated her bedroom - sealed it all off and fumigated it.
Billy: What they used to worry about, there was very little difference initially between Scarlet Fever and Diphtheria, the symptoms are pretty much the same, so that would be the panic.
Dennis: So Margaret went to Driffield Hospital. They shipped her off there and she didn't come back to Bishop Wilton after that, she went straight home.
Mike: How long were you in the hospital?
Margaret: 6 weeks.
Billy: You wouldn't have many visitors.
Margaret: None! Absolutely nil. They used to put your number in the paper when you were due to be released. I remember being in the hospital and Mrs West used to send eggs because they were so scarce, but I never saw them! [laughs] They used to say they got broken.
Dennis: I think I felt a bit lonely then. A bit out on my own. It was in 1944. People started going home by then.
I knew the names of all the German bombers, because of Mr West being in the Observer Corps. He had photographs of all of them all over the place.
Billy: You could tell the sounds of them too, couldn't you Dennis?
Mike: We heard that you could see the glow of Hull in the sky when it had been hit.
Billy: You could see it from Beulah's on the top there.
Margaret: You could see it from the village too.

Dennis: I remember setting Mr West’s hair on fire. In those days wirelesses had a big square battery, about 9 inches square, and an accumulator. You needed both of them, and he wanted to change the accumulator and the battery at night-time, the thing must have gone out, and he needed to see where to attach all the plugs and so on, so he gave me this candle, so that he could see what he was doing……And he had a real bushy mop of hair, and it all went up.
Mike: Did he see the funny side of it?
Dennis: I don't know if he did later, but he certainly didn't at the time.

Kate: Do you remember the WCs at the back?
Dennis: Oh yes, and the chicken run, too.
Margaret: Dennis hated the chickens.
Dennis: That cockerel hated me.
Mike: So the cockerel and the geese hated you!
Dennis: I don't know why - I was never cruel to them. I was accused of killing 2 pullets you know. Do you remember that?
Margaret: No.
Dennis: Those grey pullets - do you remember them?
Margaret: No, I can't.
Dennis: They were real good egg-layers apparently, and one day they were dead, and I was accused of killing them! That cockerel bloody hated me, oh, every time I went to the toilet it jumped up at the wire at me. And every now and again, you know when chickens have been in a run it gets all padded down and I had to go and dig it out. I used to be frightened to death, going in there with this bloody cockerel.
Margaret: If I had to go to the toilet at night, it seemed such a long way when you were little, Dennis had to go with me. I daren't go on my own in the dark. There was no light to take.
Dennis: This is a little bit disgusting, perhaps, but you'd go to the toilet, there was just a wooden thing with a hole in it and they were earth closets and when it was full, you know, from the people who'd been before, it used to touch your bum! That's when they knew it was time to empty it!
Billy: I don't know about yours, but ours was in a row for the cottages, and you went round the back and it was open at the back, and you had to go inside and there was a small door into the actual toilet proper, and you had to get a hoe and clean them out. And they put all the ash in there. And night soil chaps used to come and empty them and cart it all away.
Dennis: Not with us they didn't. Mr West used to get a horse and cart and we used to have to shovel it all out and put it on the cart and take it down to his allotment. Don't you remember, Margaret? It might not have been a woman's job! But I remember digging it all out. The stench was terrible. You'd dig from the back and it was like a big pit.
Margaret: They'd call it the ash pit, you see.
Dennis: You'd clear all that out, and when it was all clean and washed out and everything, you'd put down disinfectant. I think there was like a tar base, and that covered with disinfectant. And then start again.
Billy: You wouldn't have a pair of wellingtons in those days either, would you Dennis?
Dennis: That was only done like once a year - mebbe twice, I don't know.
Margaret: Twice a year, I think. I mean it was for 2 houses, for West's and Mr Wilson's.

Mike: Beaty Coulman said she had to stand up at the table to eat.
Dennis: Yes, we had to.
Margaret: Oh no we didn't Dennis.
Dennis: We did in the backroom on a Sunday.
Margaret: We only did it, Dennis, when they had visitors, which was perhaps understandable.
Dennis: Well, it seemed to be every Sunday to me.
Margaret: Well it wasn't, and you always had what they had anyway.
Dennis: You can't complain about owt like that anyway.
Kate: They'd treat you like they treated their own children.
Dennis: Their own children were sat at the table. They showed a little bit of favouritism, you know. They had a horsehair couch as well, that was blooming horrible.

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