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Title	INTERVIEW WITH MRS JEAN KELLEY
Description	This is the story of Jeanette (Jean) Anne Martin, her twin brother James (Jimmy) Vernon Martin and older brother Ernest Peter Joseph Martin, who was always called Peter. They lived in Malden Road, Kentish Town in London. ?We were evacuated on 3rd September 1939 from Fleet Road School in Hampstead, London. We arrived in Berkhamsted (Hertfordshire) with nowhere very much to go. Children were lined up and delegated to various people who said things like, ?I?ll take this one and I?ll take that one?. We were pretty much the last on the list as twins and an older brother who didn?t want to be separated and we kept holding hands. It was getting dark so they took us to a temporary billet in a very affluent house but we couldn?t stay there for more than a couple of days. The lady there was quite unkind despite the fact that we were very young. Jimmy and I were barely 6 years old and Peter was 10. There was some talk of people taking us in during the day time and sending us somewhere else to sleep but that didn?t work out. Peter was a very endearing boy with blond hair and a mischievous way and he was eventually chosen. No one really wanted to take us twins until Aunty Lizzie said she would have us. The people who took Peter were very cruel and treated him badly, for example locking him in a cupboard under the stairs. My Mum would give him half a crown, a lot of money in those days, to buy lemonade and a biscuit when the family went out. But they would get him a glass of water and no biscuit and take the money. He was so unhappy he ran away and hitch-hiked and walked back to London, about 28 miles. My mother was so angry she almost broke their door down, but to no avail. She could not get to the woman. They had put his suitcase on the doorstep and locked the door. They were ready to call the police so we had no comeback. My mother would have killed her I think. Because he had run away Peter was tarnished and was sent back and put in a strict boys? camp run by the Boys? Brigade in Great Gaddesden. But this wasn?t fair because he had run away because of the cruelty. The children there lived in big black huts. I?m not absolutely sure about this but I think he could not leave until he was old enough to work. But anyway, he had to stay until he was about 14 years old. Jimmy and I lived at 21 Highfield Road (now 47). It was a terraced cottage and former Dickensian style shop with cellar. There was no electricity upstairs so we had to take a candle to bed. There were lovely walks on the common land fronting Berkhamsted towards Ashridge. We picked red and gold raspberries, wild cherries, nuts, crab apples and blackberries. The bluebells were beautiful in the spring and there were wild primroses, sloes, buttercups, cowslips, giant daisies and foxgloves and ferns of all types. To the rear was woodland beyond farms towards Bovingdon aerodrome where the *G.I.s were stationed and the Flying Fortresses stood. When we walked over the common, some miles across to the other side of town, sometimes there were Romany Gypsies camped there and they made wooden pegs and other crafted goods to sell. We were a bit afraid of them. Many years later when we had married and had children of our own we would go back there and have picnics and pick blackberries, sit in the bluebell woods and have a beautiful time there. So, although evacuation is harsh, it did have some payback. Uncle Charlie and Aunty Lizzie Holiday were already old when they took us in. Aunty was in her seventies at the end of the war. She dressed very Victorian-like with her hair in a ?cottage loaf? bun. Uncle Charlie had been gassed in the First World War and was a semi-invalid. Aunty had been a nurse. They both worked at Berkhamsted Girls School where he was the caretaker and she was the matron. We picked apples that grew in the school grounds and wrapped them in blankets and stored them in the cellar. We also stored nuts in sand in tins. They were not to be eaten until Christmas. We ate well. It must have been quite costly to take on 2 children when they had none of their own. In Berkhamsted, as infants, we were able to borrow some space in the Foundling Home which was used as a school. They let a room for the underage pupils. We were given a few gifts from the G.I.s. We then went to a church school in Victoria Road. We worshipped at St Peter?s Church and the Baptist chapel in the High Street. Aunty also taught me a great deal at home ? reading, writing, embroidery and especially sewing which I do to this day. Sewing became my trade when I got my first job. I was a dressmaker at the age of 12. I passed my 11 plus so should have gone to grammar school but I got scarlet fever that left me with a neurological condition and then had a nervous breakdown so my secondary education was badly damaged. I think Aunty courted a soldier who died in the First World War and she married Uncle Charlie late. On the Sundays that our parents didn?t visit we had a treat of looking through scrap books and memorabilia. She had postcards from the front, pictures of soldiers and beautiful embroidered valentines with lace and ribbon threaded through them. Very romantic! It made me think she had been a spinster for some time. Aunty came to London to visit us after the war and when Uncle Charlie died she went to live with her sister in Luton. We would go for walks across the common to Potten End, which had a Benskins pub where my foster parents would treat us to a glass of lemonade and an arrowroot biscuit. Uncle Charlie would have a glass of beer. Peter had to walk all the way across the common and down the lane to see us once a month, a round trip of about 10 miles. We could see him from some distance away as he walked. We could sometimes see him waving a big white hankie to us. That was how we communicated and he let us know he was alright. My Dad worked on the railways. He had had a double mastoid and ear bone removal so could not go in the army. My Mum was a hairdresser but was called up for war work. She delivered perishable goods and food in London with a railway cart and horses, dodging the bombs. Mum and Dad visited us once a month. Uncle Charlie walked with us to meet the train and then we would stop off at the Benskins pub by Berkhamsted railway station. My Dad liked a beer. We had lemonade and a biscuit. There were no sweets or chocolate due to rationing. Peter would also meet us at the station. Then we would go to the house and Aunty did a hearty meal for us all, quite a feat with rationing. She also had no cooker and used a *kitchen range. She would cook something like a roasted pig?s head and apple pie. She picked fruit from the common and we had the apples from Berkhamsted Girls? School, where Uncle Charlie was in charge of the orchards. She bottled fruit and stored it in the cellar. Uncle Charlie and my Dad would take us for a walk in woods in the afternoon. Then we had tea ? bread and jam, biscuits and a cup of tea and walked back to the station to wave them off. Peter would leave from the station and we would stand outside in the garden and he would swing his big white bag as a signal that he was home safely. He took one of his socks off and put stones in it and then swung it round as a weapon in case the Gypsies tried to steal him. He also did this when he ran away to London. We twins didn?t visit London during the war so didn?t go home until 1945. We were called names by the local children such as Londonite and guttersnipe. You were only allowed to take one little suitcase, not much bigger than the gas mask case, with a change of underware. We weren?t dressed smartly so we were called names. We spoke slightly differently to the rural language of the time and the accent at that time in Berkhamsted was very strong. Aunty Lizzie got hold of some clothing for us and Mum made me a few dresses and sent them, but Jimmy played out in the garden in threadbare trousers to save his only decent pair. We were shielded from the full harshness of what was happening in the war but we could listen to the *wireless and at night-times you could sometimes see ?dog fights? between English and German planes and we saw some planes come down in flames. But this was small compared to what was happening in London. You could hear the barrage in London. You also knew that because of what was happening you might not see your Mum and Dad again. They were living in danger all the time. The hardest thing to cope with was the hurt inside you and that stays with you all your life; the lack of affection until people really got to know you. It was also the harshness and regimentation of it ? being herded together. You had to grow up before your time. Sometimes you longed for a hug from your Mum and you would cry at night-time for your parents. You wanted that hug so badly. We knew that Uncle Charlie and Aunty Lizzie wanted to adopt us and grew to love Jimmy and I and we them. But Peter?s life was hard. He had no one to give him a hug and there was cruelty even in the huts where he was billeted. There is nothing as bad as being torn away from your mother and father when you are only 6 years old, though we had love and care from our foster parents. The parents had to be hardened too. They had to put a curtain down between themselves and the children. Government policy was that the father should be in the forces, the mother in war work and the children evacuated. My Mum never spoke to me about how she felt and I never felt I could ask. The photograph below shows Jean and Jimmy aged about 8. There are more pictures relating to Jean's story in the Evacuees section. *G. I. ? American soldier * Kitchen range ? A system of cooking in which the oven is built next to an open fire and is heated by the fire. The fire might also be used for boiling water and cooking. *Wireless - radio Interview by Sarah Jane Kay
Keywords	Berkhamsted; Boys Brigade; Berkhamsted Girls' School
Collection	Evacuees
Place	Berkhamsted
Year	1939-1945
Conflict	World War Two
File type	html
Record ID number	175

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