Evacuation at the start of the Second World War changed Dennis Johnson’s life forever. In the first of three parts, DAVID MILLS hears the story of a 10-year-old boy who had to grow up overnight.
IN 1940 I was evacuated from Greenwich to Dorset, a place of safety we were told.
Me, my nine-year-old brother John and three-year-old sister Joan were put on a train packed with kids at Waterloo station.
If I had known what a totally unpleasant time I was going to have, I would have insisted on staying at home.
When we arrived, a crowd of local people gathered to look us over, as if we were cattle at a cattle market.
We must have seemed an alien lot to those villagers with our London accents, scruffy clothes and runny noses wiped on our coat sleeves.
Many children were red eyed from crying.
What started as an adventure had, for some of us, turned into a living nightmare that we would remember for the rest of our lives.
A farmer offered to look after me and my brother, and my sister was taken in by his neighbour.
While she was treated well, for me and my brother it was a different kettle of fish.
At first living on a farm was very exciting for us London boys, but the novelty soon wore off when we were expected to do more and more work.
In the early morning we would milk the cows and then drive them out onto the fields.
Then we had to clean out the cow shed.
When all that had been done we were allowed to go into the kitchen to have our breakfast, which was invariably cold porridge that had been cooked the night before and was now a solid lump in the saucepan.
At weekends it was work all day Saturday and if there was essential work to be done, all day Sunday too.
One of the most revolting jobs we had to do on that farm was emptying the bucket of excrement from the outside lavatory.
The bucket was usually full to overflowing so sliding it out from under the bench seat was a very difficult and nauseating manoeuvre.
We would hold our breath for as long as possible and then dash out to gulp a few lungs of fresh air before going to back to have another go.
I kept out of the lavatory as much as possible and used a nearby copse instead.
Life on the farm was set to get much worse for Dennis and his brother - read part two of his experiences as an evacuee next week.
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