Your Stories

Rodney, who was only ten-years-old in September 1939, remembers the day of the evacuation well. As he explained to BBC Radio Leeds' Andrew and Georgey, the events of that September day are forever imprinted on his mind: "I can remember them very clearly. I went to my school and there was a fleet of buses there - double deckers. The headmaster came out and said, 'Remember there's someone up there looking over you'. I looked up because I expected my form mistress to be looking down at me! My mum said, 'Now, Rodney, you've got to look after your baby sister' - she was five - 'and your baby brother' - who was eight. I said, 'Yes, mummy' and then the buses started pulling out. There was a lady who tried to sing Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye, but she didn't look like Gracie Fields and she couldn't sing like her either!"

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye...

With home disappearing behind him, Rodney had no idea what to expect. All he knew was that he was being sent away to avoid the threat of German bombs which many thought were imminent as Britain prepared for a war which duly started on September 3rd 1939. Rodney says this was just the start of a long day for himself, his little sister and brother: "We seemed to travel for ages and we got to Otley and we were put in this big church room. It was like a cattle market because people kept coming and saying, 'I'll have that one' or 'I don't want that one'. My little sister was taken away, but my mum had told me to look after her so I ran after the lady saying, 'Please, please don't take my sister away! My mummy says I have to look after her.' But she just said, 'She's all right. You'll see her tomorrow.' I didn't see her for a week."

The aim in evacuating so many children from the cities to West Yorkshire's countryside was to avoid the bombs which, in due course, were going to cause so much death and havoc in places like London, Coventry and Hull. But, ironically for Rodney, the war was quick to arrive virtually on his own doorstep: "The first bomb dropped on top of Otley Chevin! Just over the road was what is Leeds and Bradford Airport. That was then the home of 609 Spitfire Squadron and next door, which is now a trading estate, was the home of Avro who built the Lancaster [bomber]. The Germans were trying to get that."

Bombing was a constant threat to cities

Rodney does have some good memories of his time as a West Yorkshire evacuee, though, as he got used to country life: "I was turned into a farm kid! I learned there were other things to do than putting pennies on the tram tracks. I learned the difference between Scribbling Larks' eggs and why it was called a Scribbling Lark - because it looked like indelible pencil on the eggshell - and things like that. People showed me how baby calves came into the world and how they got there."

In fact, Rodney says that by the time he returned to his old school he had really changed: "My foster mum had dressed me as a country kid and I walked into this schoolroom with corduroy shorts down below my knees and everybody was pointing at me!"

Seventy years later, Rodney Angel in Gomersal's memories of what it was like to be an evacuee during those dark days in September 1939 are crystal clear. They are a reminder to everyone in West Yorkshire that it wasn't so very long ago that the world was turned upside down by World War Two. To those of us born after those tumultuous events, it poses the question how we would have coped in similar circumstances...

You can hear more West Yorkshire evacuees' stories on BBC Radio Leeds with Andrew and Georgey between 0600 and 0900 every day this week on 92.4 FM and 774 MW.