"Our house in Manningham Road, Anfield, Liverpool, was damaged by bombing on 10 October 1940, the day before my 6th birthday.

We had all gone to the Air Raid shelter when the Air Raid sirens sounded.

The family was my Mother, eldest sister aged 10,elder brother aged 8, and youngest sister aged 4.

My elder brother had gone back into the house to find something when the house partially collapsed, luckily he hid under a table and was unhurt. The plane was ditching it's bombs before it crashed in Stanley Park. I don`t remember being frightened at all by the air raids, it just seemed like an adventure.

We then went to our Granny`s house for a few weeks before being evacuated. My eldest sister and I went to Dolypandy, Capel Bangor, about 6 miles from Aberystwyth.

My brother to Nefyn,and my youngest sister stayed at home for the time being.

I remember catching a red tramcar from Edge Lane to Lime Street Station with a large luggage lable on my coat, a gas mask, and a pillowcase with all my clothes in. The train journey has no memories for me, I only know that my eldest sister held my hand and refused to let go!

The village where we went to was quite primitive, it was a very small - all Welsh speaking, which was a big culture shock for all, as our English was at best hardly understood by anyone outside Liverpool!

We soon learned enough to get by, and can still say a few phrases now.

The only other non-Liverpool evacuees were a mother and son from London, they weren't understood by anyone!

There was no water, plumbing, gas or electricity in the cottage we were in, although I think a few of the larger houses had some.

Our cottage was one of four Cob built ones, the eldest in the village.

It was semi-detached and had one living room and a bedroom downstairs and a loft. Downstairs was a stone flagged floor, a woodburning fireplace, which was occasionally used for cooking and a paraffin stove which was fed by an inverted bottle of paraffin which always made a "Glugging" noise as it fed the stove.

There was also a wooden settle, a table and one paraffin lamp.The bedroom was the landlady's and I only saw inside it a few times. It was quite basic.

We slept in the loft reached by a wooden ladder. The loft was only partially floored with a mattress on the floor to sleep on.They used to keep apples etc. on the other part but it was too dangerous to stand on.

We could see outside through the gaps in the tiles so it wasn't the warmest place in winter.

Outside the back door was a vegetable garden, at the end of which was the "Privy". There was also a Damson tree. All the "Night Soil" was dug into the veg patch.

Outside the back door was a slate slab that we used to keep a bowl of water on for washing ourselves in,we used to break the ice in winter before we washed.

In all the time we spent as evacuees none of us ever remember having a toothbrush.

The village was off the main road.The road had a Corn Exchange at the top which used to sell just about anything you needed, I remember it always smelt of paraffin which was handpumped out of a barrel into the customers containers.

At the top of the village was a watermill, still in use. A single road ran through the place with most of the houses on the left hand side. There was a small stream to the right. As you leave the Village past the Chapel, the "School" and the Chapel house, you get back to the main road, where there was a pub and a blacksmith's shop/Forge.

We used to spend time there watching the Smith make and fit horseshoes.The smell when he fitted the hot shoes to the horses to fit them is still with me. His apprentice used to pump a great big leather bellows with a long handle to get the iron hot.

Some of the tasks we used to do were to carry water from the tap down the road to the cottage and to collect firewood from the local woods. Collecting wood was O.K. as it meant being out playing in the woods all day only coming back when hunger forced us!

I can only remember being ill once during the evacuation, that was when we caught Scabies, and were taken to Borth in a car, where we stayed for acouple of weeks in what seemed to be a private house until it cleared up.

The only other car journey I can recall was when we went to a relative of our landlady, where we spent all day playing in a barn and watching peewits and lapwings flying around the marshes.

School as such didn't exist, all the evacuees were in one room, the chapel annexe. As the children's ages were from 5 to 12 it must have been quite a challenge for the 2 teachers, one of whom was called Miss Young.

We generally played with plasticine making farmyard animals etc.and some reading. We didn't always go to school, we more or less did as we liked.

Some of the boys used to skip off when we heard a tractor coming, as it meant a free ride to watch threshing or some other exciting activity, as no-one in the village owned a vehicle.

The only lessons I really liked was singing and nature walks. Our singing teacher was a Miss Pugh. She really knew how to teach. We used to sing in Chapel about three times a week and church once a week. Our services were much in demand.

We sang mainly in Welsh and even sang at a local Eisteddfod but I don`t remember winning anything.The singing was useful at Xmas time as we used to sing carols at the houses to earn pocket money.

We were only allowed to do it on Xmas morning. There used to be a mad rush to sing at the local Manor as the Squire would give the first singers sixpence, a real fortune!

We used to get up at about 6 am to be first, no doubt to his annoyance!

The nature walks were conducted by one of the local "Gentry", a Mr. Black, as far as I can remember.

I found it fascinating. We learnt where all the wild plum,apple, crab apple and cherry trees were as well learning about all the Flora and Fauna.

The fruit trees used to supplement our diets,he even showed us a "Strawberry" tree which we thought was wonderful. ( I have found out since that the correct name is the Arbutus tree).

We used to navigate our way around by using local farms, the ones I remember were, Maes Bangor, Trodrwllwba, The Fron and the Upper Fron.

We used to help out in some small ways at most of them,milking the most placid cows, with a glass of warm milk as a reward,lovely!

We also did Potato picking, egg collecting etc. One Farmer used to put 4 or 5 Kids on the back of one of his big Shire horses and let them ride back to the farm.

On one occasion I walked behind one of the cows when it decided it didn't like me and kicked out sending me flying into a manure heap.

I smelled pretty bad for a few days! The same farmer had Ferrets. I unfortunately put my finger through the wire mesh to stroke him. He then bit right through my finger!

One of the farms had a pet ram which was hand reared, that we used to play with, as it grew it got quite strong, I remember that when my brother had joined me, (my eldest sister went back to Liverpool in1943), we were playing around a haystack, my brother came around the corner on his hands and knees and "Snookey" the pet ram decided that he was being challenged to a duel promptly went "Head to Head" and flattened him!

When my sister left she gave me instructions to "mind my Marigolds". She used to have a small flower garden in the School playground which she used to guard from the boys playing football (a bundle of rags tied with string!)

We also helped at the farms when they were taking the wheat out of the barns for threshing. The area was fenced off and the grain was loaded into the machine. As the barn was getting cleared all the rats and mice used to make a break for it. Our job was to kill them.

I know one time I had an old weather vane as weapon of choice and took a swipe at a rat as it ran over a man's foot, unfortunately I missed the rat but hit his foot.

I learnt a lot of Welsh language that day, most of which I didn`t understand!

Once we got caught scrumping apples from the Manor, we were told off by the Squire and told that stealing was wrong, we should always ask if we wanted anything. His face was a picture next day when we knocked on his door and asked if we could pick some of his apples!

My brother and I used to get on with each other like a house on fire but I think we were a bit too wild at times and got into hot water.We weren't used to any discipline, not much schooling and free spirited, an ideal way of life.

We don't ever remember getting birthday or Xmas presents. I suppose money was very tight. I do remember getting an Easter Egg once, it was a hard boiled duck egg, but still a treat!

Our bad behaviour used to be dealt with by corporal punishment which was the norm in those days. It got so bad once that we ran away in the middle of Winter.

I think we were heading for Liverpool, but had no real idea where it was, we got caught a few miles down the road, it was just as well, as we were freezing.I think things improved after that.

I also remember watching a " Hedging and Ditching" competition and a Ploughing competition at Bow Street, a small village a couple of miles away.

The skills of the men were fascinating, layering the hedges, cleaning and tidying the ditches and ploughing straight furrows using 2 big horses, a good day out.

Another thing we learnt was how to find some grasses which tasted of toffee, one that tasted of lemon and a small plant tasting of vinegar. What they were I've no idea but they obviously did us no harm.

We also did some gardening for two sisters the Misses Rheith who lived in a cottage called "Y Nith" (The Nest) they gave us Threepence or Sixpence which was a fortune to us. We used to hide any money we had in a tin by the Rubbish dump. The Dump was quite small only small broken broken items no food waste, but there always seemed to be a lot of blue "Milk of Magnesia" bottles, I wonder why?

We always seemed to be hungry as growing boys are and used to supplement our diets by digging potatos out of the storage "clamps" (they were put into mounds and covered with straw then soil, which was flattened with the back of a spade to make it frost and rainproof), and by eating the "heart" of "Cow Kale" and turnips.

We had a real treat once, an Army convoy pulled up on the main road, just outside the village. A lot of the soldiers went to the Corn Exchange to buy Lemonade etc. When they had finished and had to move off, they gave us what was left of the lemonade to drink which was great. We also returned the bottles to the shop and got a Penny deposit back on each, so we were full of "Pop" and rich!

We also used to play a lot down by the river Rheidol, especially by the railway lines, there were no trains running during the war, it was the Aberystwyth to Devil`s Bridge line.

The carriages were kept in a big shed and we used to play in them especially if it was raining.

I went back there about 20 years later, nothing had changed! Pole vaulting was another activity, we used to try to get over as wide a stream as possible, not always successfully and often ended up very wet and muddy!

I also learned how to play Draughts, the elderly man next door taught me how to play and once I'd got the hang of it, used to enjoy the competition.

We played by the light of a very dim oil lamp. He had 2 grandsons about my age, Gareth and Glyndwr. I still don`t know where they went to school, there were no school buses or other types of transport.

Up at "The Fron" farm there was an Italian P.O.W. called " Rosie" who used to give us haircuts using a pudding basin! We were terrified of him at first because he was the the " Enemy" but got to like him later as he was a really nice guy.

During our time in Wales I only saw my Mother once, how she got the time and money to visit us. I don't know as she was making munitions for War at the Meccano Factory in Liverpool.

My Brother and I Had built a small bridge over a stream in the woods which we proudly showed her, She also left a special stone by the bridge so we could remember her.

Although we didn't see much of our parents, (Dad was in the Army and left in 1939 with the B.E.F). I don`t remember missing them that much!

My Brother and I left Wales in1944 to go back to Liverpool. Some of the Evacuees we can remember are........Renee Clay, Barbara Clay, Elsie Rittenberg, Maisie Rittenberg, Roy Whitehead, Des Cockshott, Gwyneth Headley, Rodney Barret.

My younger Sister spent some time in Nevin and Haverfordwest.

Despite our lack of Schooling we all progressed quite well.My eldest Sister was Head Girl at her school, and had a career in Marketing.

My elder Brother went to a Technical College, and had a carreer as an Electrician in the Royal and Mercant Navies, then Industry.

I passed the Scholarship Exam to The Liverpool Collegiate High School for Boys, then a successful Engineering career in the Royal Navy,and Industry.

My youngest Sister went to Liverpool Art College then a very successful career in Nursing.

As of this date - February 2009 - we are all still alive and well. "

Article written by George Holden.