Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

Chapter 2
Exploring the Lake District
F
rom the summer of l938 onwards I was well aware of the events leading up to
Munich and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and that people were getting
increasingly concerned and pessimistic about political developments. I helped
in Whitley Bay with the issue of gas masks, standing behind a trestle table and
handing them out; rather sinister-looking, futuristic contraptions of rubber, with a
metal canister in front to hold the filter – in cheap cardboard boxes.
The War: Evacuation to Wigton
Then suddenly on 1 September l939 we found ourselves being evacuated -
travelling by train to Wigton in Cumberland. It was quite an adventure, setting off
mid-morning from Manors Station, Newcastle, with our gas masks and labels to
identify us. We changed trains at Carlisle for Wigton and on arrival marched from
the station to Nelson School where we were given rations - chocolate, condensed
milk, corned beef and biscuits. We formed into parties of 15 -20 boys (presumably
the same happened to the girls), and walked out into the town with the local billeting
officer. He knocked on the doors of the houses where we were to billeted and the
housewives chose from among us, however many they had been allocated. It was a
lovely late summer day and all rather novel to us.
I was placed with the Parkers, a very likeable childless couple who lived in a
small cottage in a cobbled yard off the main street, near the southern edge of the
town. It had an outside toilet and the washing place was a stone sink near the front
door. On many mornings I washed in the open from a bucket - later even on days
when it was freezing cold and I had to break the ice on the pail! In a rather more
impressive house just next door Bill Harrison, a friend, was billeted. The
Parkers' niece, Lily was her name I think, had a boyfriend with a car and it was
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