Arriving and Settling In

Stibbington Home Front Memories Project – Part 1 Arrival and Settling In
Stibbington Home Front Memories Project
[Write up of information from local newspapers (Peterborough Advertiser, Peterborough Standard
and Stamford Mercury) along with some data and information from the school’s log book and
registers.]
ARRIVAL
The first group of ‘Stibbington evacuees’ arrived in the village on Friday September 1st 1939 as part
of ‘Operation Pied Piper’. They had arrived at Peterborough North Station at about 11am, most of
the 900 teachers and children on board originating from the Tottenham area. The Peterborough
Standard describes them as:
‘having nothing frail about them. They looked well fed and sturdy and as clean as one could
expect children to be who had just finished a two hour train journey, packed, sometimes 16
to a compartment and that on a hot day. In dress they were up to the average of elementary
school children, and the girls looked natty and bright’.
The evacuees were clearly in good spirits, and arrangements for their dispersal ‘were better than we
had a right to expect’.
‘The party marched off, and the boys started up some of the old marching songs, including
“Tipperary”. They swung their respirators and bags of small belongings and the labels
fluttered in the breeze.
Their first march was to Bishop’s Road. Here they were loaded up on ‘buses. Asked “Have you
got your fare ready?” a boy replied, “No, the King is paying the fare for us.”
Some of these children went to Stanground, Norman Cross villages and outlying parts. They
all went amid cheers and laughter in the course of half-an-hour or so.’
[PS 8/9/39]
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Stibbington Home Front Memories Project – Part 1 Arrival and Settling In
For Fletton Urban and Norman Cross Rural, the reception officer was Mr G R Rumsey, headmaster of
Fletton Secondary School ‘and he did most efficient service with the help of the teachers in seeing the
children on to their ‘buses’. Mr T H Peach was the chief billeting officer for Norman Cross, with the
help of Mr P Lockyer, chairman of the Council.
At the station, trains continued to arrive: at 2 o’clock, from Islington, when ‘again there was a hearty
welcome’. They were met by a number of local dignitaries – the Mayor and councillors, billeting
officers, a nursing contingent, members of the Women’s Voluntary Services, the Vicar of
Peterborough and a Salvation Army officer, wondering ‘what sort’ he was going to get for
Newborough.
‘One noted the good humour of the receptionists. School teachers were kindness itself; one
could not say too much in praise of the pleasing way they handled their guests’.
This train load was mainly for the Peterborough and Barnack Rural districts (100 went to Castor.)
‘Again the march started and the visitors were delighted with two little Peterborough boys,
dressed one as a Red Indian and the other a Policeman.’
A further train arrived in the afternoon, carrying 800 from Crouch End, most of whom went to
Fletton Urban district and some to Peterborough Rural.
On Saturday 2nd September, arrivals continued, starting at 11am with a ‘big load’ from Stoke
Newington, two large schools with many secondary children. These were taken in a long line of
single decker buses, 300 to Barnack rural district, 60 to villages to the east of Peterborough, some to
Norman Cross district, and the remaining 240 to Walton, the first group to be billeted in the City
itself.
‘These London boys were intensely interested in the country they were coming to, especially
the really rural parts. They rather hoped they would not have to go to school, but they
swallowed that and wanted to know “what else?”
We suggested that they would help with the harvest. That sounded good, especially the
prospect of rabbits, but one youth fervently hoped that harvesting did not include peapicking: he’d “had some”. We reassured him and offered the alternative of sugar beet and
potatoes, which, curiously enough, had no terrors for him. He hoped there would be fishing.
We assured him that the fish in the fen dykes simply came to the surface begging to be
caught.’
Mrs Bryant, Peterborough’s Mayor, met every train. Along with Mr Frank Smith, (City Treasurer) as
chief billeting officer, and Mr Hankin, the reception officer, she was constantly on duty. They were
‘quite the highlights of the disembarkation’.
‘We saw her put out a hand to a small girl who dried her tears and capitulated. She clung to
the Mayor and very soon Mrs Bryant would have collected a following like the Pied Piper.
Later we saw her nursing a baby who ‘goo-gooed’ with intense satisfaction. The Mayor said
she had too many grandchildren to lose her cunning.’
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Stibbington Home Front Memories Project – Part 1 Arrival and Settling In
During that Saturday afternoon, there was a change in atmosphere at the station, as arriving trains
brought mothers and young children, rather than school parties. At 2pm a half empty train arrived
carrying some 150 mothers and children.
‘The scene was more affecting than that afforded by the earlier arrivals. These children were
tired and fretful from the long hot journey. The mothers were much the same; and some of
them had three and four children.
They found plenty to help them with their baggage, living and otherwise. Could anyone
handle a baby with greater tenderness and skill than did some of those big railway men?’
Two further similar trains brought the total of mothers and infants combined to something like 800.
They were sent on mainly to Fulbridge and Brooke-Street schools. Here the Chief Billeting Officer
faced a difficult task – many who had offered spaces for school children were not so keen to have
‘another woman’ in the house. Eventually, though, all were accommodated (though some had to be
sent for their first night to ‘licensed houses’).
At 11am on Sunday 3rd September, just as Hitler was throwing away the last chance of peace, the
last train arrived.
‘This was a very heavy train, loaded in London in an immense rush and a large proportion
were of the Jewish race. Faces, speech and the names on the luggage proclaimed it, even if
the chief man of the Salvation Army in charge had not told us the same. “They were loaded in
a panic,” he said, “and many have not yet had their names and addresses registered. It was a
trying sight,” he adds,” when they left and said goodbye to their menfolk.”
When noon came, not one of the great party was left on the dock. Buses and private cars,
streams of them, had taken them to their depots. The large gang of men and women who
had been helping wiped the perspiration from their brows. For carrying suitcases and kitbags
was no light work. But what a repayment was the look of gratitude on the faces of the tired
women as they got into their seats for the last stage of their journey.’
Three more trains should have followed, but they were apparently requisitioned for troop
movements. Further evacuations, if any, would have to wait.
On the Monday morning, the Mayor thanked those people who had offered billets to mothers with
young children. It is clear that this had not been achieved totally voluntarily, as she expressed regret
that she had had to use her compulsory powers.
‘The trouble was that whereas the city (as distinct from the rural districts) was told to expect
3,400 unaccompanied children, they actually received only 220. The difference in numbers
was made up in part by adults and children. They had to dispose of the people sent, and she
knew that some were disappointed not to get the school children.’
The rural districts had absorbed the bulk of school age children, including Glinton which took the
whole of Hanover LCC School, Islington, accompanied by the headmistress and staff (70 being sent
on to Helpston).
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Stibbington Home Front Memories Project – Part 1 Arrival and Settling In
Mr Smith, chief billeting officer, told the Standard that there were now 1,496 evacuees in
Peterborough City, including 230 of school age. On Tuesday 4th September, it was announced that
evacuation was complete. 650,000 evacuees (school children, children under school age with their
mothers, expectant mothers and blind people) had left London. This was fewer than had been
anticipated, and explains why smaller numbers had been received in Peterborough.
SETTLING IN
There are no accounts relating specifically to the evacuees billeted in Stibbington and Wansford, but
two detailed accounts from the Peterborough Advertiser about life in local villages (mainly Farcet,
Yaxley, Stilton and Holme) will be typical of their experiences. There were clearly two different sides
to the story:
‘On the one hand it means the bringing of sunshine, laughter and happiness into small,
perhaps childless households; interesting companionships for the only child and newcomers
to whom brothers and sisters are vying with each other in showing kindliness and generosity.
On the other hand it is no exaggeration to say that certain homes have been broken up by
the exacting demands of some of the mothers who look upon their stay in the country as a
respite from work; while from the farmers and smallholders come stories of raids upon
orchards by the children, horseplay, the chasing and worrying of pigs, the climbing and
tumblings of haystacks and fights with local boys and girls.’
There were reports of mothers declining to help out with cooking or housework – even “You don’t
expect me to do my own shopping, do you?” Payments were being received for providing billets and
some parents felt that as the Government was paying, they shouldn’t have to. Others were
‘behaving like dictators’ demanding a morning cup of tea and hot daily baths (and of going from
house to house to find one!) One couple reported that their daughter, having become so infuriated
with their ‘guest’s’ behaviour, had packed her bags and left home, and they did not know where she
was.
Most rural billets, including Stibbington homes, housed unaccompanied school age children only, so
many of these issues did not concern them, and most could enjoy their new ‘foster’ children:
The children are, on the whole, a bright, happy, high-spirited and intelligent crowd, and any
naughtiness, or rather mischievousness, may be attributed to the excitement at living in the
country for the first time, to thoughtlessness, and failure to realise that it frightened cattle
and makes them hot to chase them about the fields, and to the commonest cause of mischief
– the proverbial ‘idle hands’.
(A city child) knows the law of property as it applies in a town, but he does not realise that
cattle, growing crops, fruit on trees, etc., are property which must be respected as much as
goods in a shop.’
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Stibbington Home Front Memories Project – Part 1 Arrival and Settling In
[PA 8/9/39]
There are many anecdotes about the city child’s ignorance ofrural matters, even simple recognition
of farm animals. Amongst those published in the papers are:
•
•
•
•
Three children in Castor, who returned from collecting wild flowers covered in a rash, having
picked stinging nettles;
One child in Thorney, so ‘electrified’ at the sight of a hen sitting on an egg that she declared she
would never return to London, and wanted her parents to move to the country;
Another child from Thorney, so excited at seeing a cow for the first time, that she spent a full 15
minutes describing it to her new family;
The child, reported by her teacher, as the train passed by a farmyard full of chickens, who
declared “Look at the size of them ants!”
and for children from severely deprived backgrounds there were other delights:
•
the boy, reported in the Stamford Mercury, who was so excited at receiving a parcel on the train
containing his first ever pair of pyjamas, that he unpacked them four times, (infuriating his
teacher who re-packed them each time), and expressing concern that he might have to give
them back “when m’oliday’s over!”’
During the first part of September, this really was a holiday for the children, as schools were not yet
re-opened from the summer holidays. Whilst some teachers were able to organise activities for their
evacuees, for many they were entirely free to explore a whole new rural environment. Whilst some
missed ‘the pictures’ twice a week and the North London roller speedway back at home, they could
look forward in the winter months to some real skating on the ice ‘ in the heart of the district where
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Stibbington Home Front Memories Project – Part 1 Arrival and Settling In
champions skate’. Others enjoyed country pursuits, like ferreting, if lucky enough to have a ‘foster’
father involved in the activity. The ‘hills and holes’ of the London Brick Company knotholes were
another attraction. Scrumping for apples was commonplace:
‘Diane Burns, in Farcet, confessed, “We got a big paper bag full”.
The Advertiser: “Did you have a pain?”
“No. That is, not much of a one, but we couldn’t eat any dinner”.’
Letters from home were testament to the anguish caused by the separation of these children from
their parents:
‘It would be profane to print any of the very beautiful letters, breathing love and affection in
every line, which Diane put into my hand. The poignancy of these separations is scarcely
realised by such small children, who are vaguely homesick, but who cannot know how their
mothers and fathers are torn between their wish to have them out of harm’s way and their
hourly anxiety to know how they are getting on.’
There were some accompanying parents here, like Mrs Webster from North London who recognised
that the children were getting great benefit from the Fenland breezes:
‘”The air is strong here,” said Mrs Webster, “and it makes the children eat well. We have
heard of bared apple trees, and the children have wanted syrup of figs for the after effects,
but they have been told about scrumping for apples. They really saw no harm in it, but of
course, it is wrong.”’
One lad fell into the water when ‘investigating’ a fish pond, and had to be sent to bed whilst his
‘foster’ mum dried out his one and only pair of trousers. Others gathered at the smithy. Roper
Gilthro, landlord of the King William IV and Yaxley’s village blacksmith reported:
‘”They love the smithy and say they have never seen one before. The sound of the hammer
on the anvil, according to one tiny tot, is like Big Ben striking.”’
It wasn’t just apples that were in short supply, as local food suppliers took time to adjust to
additional demand. Food rationing was not yet in force:
‘The butchers are feeling the difference in eating power, caused by the increased population.
“...some of the people have been left grumbling because we had no beef left and had to take
mutton round. I told them that in a few weeks they might be glad to take anything.”’
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Stibbington Home Front Memories Project – Part 1 Arrival and Settling In
On arrival in Stilton, the reporter found that Mr Grant, the headmaster of Stilton School, had given
the evacuees plenty to do and they were engrossed in a game of cricket. Curiously, though, the
evacuees all wore red tabs on their shoulders to distinguish them from the village children.
[PA 8/9/39]
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Stibbington Home Front Memories Project – Part 1 Arrival and Settling In
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