OUT OF THE FRYING PAN. WAS LEATHERHEAD REALLY SAFER THAN LONDON?

Under the pseudonym Alice Graysharp, writer Rowena Tompkins has written a novel entitled The Keeping of Secrets inspired by her family’s reminiscences of the Second World War. The main character was based on the real life experiences of her mother Edith as a wartime evacuee from south London to Leatherhead. Edith's memoirs provided the basis of Rowena's presentation to the L&DHLS on Friday 16 November. She is shown above during her evacuation period.

The talk, entitled Out of the Frying Pan, began by describing her childhood as the daughter of a baker living in a series of rented houses in south London. Born in 1924 she won a scholarship to St Martin-in-the-Fields High School in 1935 but her parents were poor and her mother took on cleaning work to pay for her school uniform. Edith was cared for by her grandmother.

In September 1938 all schoolchildren were issued with gas masks and had a mock evacuation day. They had to carry gas masks to school every day knowing  a war was coming. In August 1939 they returned to school much earlier than usual as the pupils were all about to be evacuated. On Saturday 2 September 1939 Edith left home at 5.30am for school by 6am. Her mother made her a packed lunch and her father walked home to say goodbye to her. No one knew where the children would be staying and her parents only found out days later by postcard.

Despite a heat wave the children wore their winter uniforms and carried only small cases. They eventually arrived by train at Leatherhead Station where they were swiftly marched in pairs to the Kingston Road evacuee distribution centre. There they were all matched with local homes and given a paper bag containing tins of corned beef, baked beans and evaporated milk. Edith was driven with two other girls to a large house in Givons Grove. It was quite a contrast with the cramped accommodation she was used to.

They were shown to a sitting room where their host was painting a nude woman. This was where they slept. Edith was given a divan with no sheet and a scratchy blanket. Her companions were given a double bed. During the first night they were awoken by their hostess who complained that they had locked the door and occupied the bathroom for too long. Instead they were to use the bath in her bedroom.

The next day was Sunday and the evacuees filed into Leatherhead Church. Instead of the organ they heard their first air raid warning and the vicar said England was now at war. Breakfast consisted of leftover crusts from the night before and burnt jam. All meals were leftovers, supplemented by the tins they had been given on arrival. Lunch costing 4d was provided at the evacuation centre but it was never enough. Their hostess kept the girls busy weeding her garden, removing clover from her lawn.

They started lessons from Monday at St John’s School. Daily assembly was held by St Martin’s School on the upper floor of the building and they moved between  classrooms and the gym. The St John’s School pupils attended in the mornings and those from St Martin’s in the afternoons. Edith's mornings were spent in buildings elsewhere in Leatherhead and she attended the Methodist church hall for French and art lessons. Games and PE were held at a local sports club.

Everyone had to help the war effort and Edith was sent with fellow evacuees to the Royal School for the Blind, which was turned into an emergency hospital, to help dig and fill canvas sandbags with earth. When her first week ended her parents visited her and her mother was concerned about the lack of laundry arrangements. After two weeks the three girls were all moved to other accommodation.

Edith was driven to a house in Pachesham Park and greeted by the owner and two  new fellow evacuees. She shared a room on the first floor where they slept on camp beds. The house seemed palatial: the main bedroom had an en suite bathroom and there was a separate flat for the servant. Her new hostess fed them properly, sharing out portions of golden syrup from a big glass jar. 

But this pleasant time was also short-lived as the owner's family arrived from London and they had to move out again. Edith was found a third home in Cobham Road at a semi-detached house near the millpond. The owner's husband had just retired as a butcher. They had several daughters, two living at home of whom one worked at the local telephone exchange, the other had a hairdressing business in Thornton Heath.

Edith shared a bedroom with the former. The bed was too short for her. She went back to her parents for Christmas but returned to yet another location in January above a butcher’s shop at the far end of Fetcham. From there they all moved to a rented bungalow in Warenne Road. Edith's hostess took the single room and, doubling her income, took in another evacuee too. Edith shared with the girl she had known at Givons Grove.

Edith celebrated her 16th birthday in June 1940 and matriculated. One day in autumn 1940 she and a friend were cycling back into Warenne Road when they heard a falling bomb. They threw themselves onto the side of the road and it exploded in a field nearby. When she was away at Christmas a bomb landed on the house next door in Warenne Road. Both houses were empty at the time but she had to move again to a council house off Poplar Road.

Leatherhead was no safer than south London. Most evacuees tended to remain at one place for the duration but Edith stayed in six places within 18 months with five  different families. She left both school and Leatherhead in 1942 and was evacuated again to Doncaster with her teacher's training school. After the war she married and worked as an art teacher for many years. She died in 2014.