Guernsey Evacuees in Stockport
by Gillian Mawson
In June 1940,
just days before the Nazis occupied the Channel Islands, 17,000 evacuees left
Guernsey for England. The first to leave were 5,000 Guernsey school children,
together with their teachers and 500 Guernsey mothers acting as 'helpers'. Most
of the evacuees were sent to Lancashire and Cheshire, and the largest number,
around 2,500, settled in Stockport for the duration of the war. One headmaster
re-opened his 'Guernsey school' in Cheadle Hulme Parish Hall so that the
teachers and pupils could remain together. Interviews have revealed what life
was like for these evacuees in wartime Stockport, separated from their families
for five years.
Children and teachers of the Guernsey school in Cheadle Hulme Parish Hall
Eva Le Page left Guernsey as a 'teacher's
helper' with her baby, Anthony, and a bag which contained just nappies and
feeding bottles. Ruth Alexandre wrote in her diary: “Hours on a cattle boat, in
the hold. Torrential rain about two o’clock so all had to go under cover where
cattle had recently been landed. Everything full of coal dust, sat on
suitcases,everything very dark and cold.” Ruth eventually moved into a house on
Clwyd Avenue, in Edgeley.
John
Tippett was evacuated with his school to Glasgow but his mother sailed to
England separately, and was sent to Stockport Town Hall. After a few weeks she
discovered John’s whereabouts, and he was sent by train to Stockport. He walked
into the Town hall and was horrified by the scene that met his eyes: “The noise
and the smell, all the camp beds lined up, people’s belongings all over the
floor! According to my mum, I didn’t take my coat and gas mask off. She said to
me ‘Take your coat off’ and I kept saying to her, ‘No'. I thought that I was
just visiting Mum for the day, and that I was going back to Glasgow.”
Five-year-old
Stanley Bienvenu, became seriously ill in a Stockport hospital with bronchial
pneumonia and it was not known whether his mother had reached England. The
press launched an appeal to find her, and The Stockport Advertiser reported “She reached Stockport
on Friday evening and a jovial, if not altogether tearless reunion, took place
between mother and sick child in his little cubicle. Mrs Bienvenu has five
children and they are all with her in Stockport. Her only anxiety now is for
her husband’s safety. He stayed on in Guernsey and she has only had one wire
from him since she left.”
Stanley Bienvenu and his mother
In early July, the child evacuees were billeted
with local families. Ruth
Harrison’s family chose a little Guernsey girl, Win De La Mare, to stay with
them, and Ruth recalls, “Mum chose a little girl so that she could come and
play with me like a sister, and Win did become like my own sister.” Mavis Brown
and her mother were chosen by a Stockport housewife “We were chosen by a lady
who had a child the same age as me. She asked for a lady with a little girl who
had dark hair and we ‘fitted the bill’. She was very kind.”
The
evacuees integrated into their local communities but they also set up Channel
Island Societies. The Stockport branch was the largest in England, with over
2,000 members. They held meetings at Tiviot Dale Church and printed their own
magazine. 5,000 copies were printed every month and circulated throughout
England. Most evacuees found friendship amongst their
neighbours and Anne
Martins recalls, “People brought us books and toys because they knew that our
mums and dads in Guernsey wouldn’t be able to send us anything as there was no
postal service during the war.” Len Robilliard recalls, “A policeman came along
and handed me a ten shilling note, a lot of money in 1940, and told me to use
it to buy sweets for the Guernsey children.” Peter Ninnim was touched by the
welcome from local people, saying “I cannot thank the people of Stockport
enough for taking us into their community – we depended on the kindness of
strangers many a time.” One Guernsey mother wrote in her diary “People here are
very sympathetic. They say ‘We’re all on
the same side love, what bits do you need for your house? We will see what we
can give you'.” Sadly a small number of
evacuees were treated badly during the war. Some of their neighbours thought
they were German because of their unfamiliar surnames.
Stockport was a complete culture shock to these
evacuees who had left a small, quiet island and been plunged into a town of
wide roads, terraced houses, factories, smog and smoke. Some remember that
Stockport people didn't seem to know where Guernsey was, and they assumed that
the evacuees would not speak English. One evacuee wrote in her diary “I told the
girls at the Co-op that I was from Guernsey, and they replied 'Fancy! And you
speak perfect English too!'
When Guernsey was liberated by the British on 9
May 1945, thousands of evacuees assumed they would be able to go home straight
away. However on 3 June
1945, 6,000 Channel Island evacuees gathered at Belle Vue Stadium, Manchester,
and were told “The immediate return to the islands of a large number of persons
would create very serious problems of accommodation and unemployment.” Many of the child evacuees who returned home had difficulty bonding
with their Guernsey parents, and family life was never the same again. Many had
become attached to their Stockport
'foster parents' and were sad to leave them behind. One recalled, ‘I had left Guernsey when I was
five years old so and when I got back, I didn’t recognise my dad - we were like
strangers. ’ Win de La Mare said “t wasn’t easy. When I got back home, my
mother had two more children, who I didn’t know, and I often felt that I just
didn’t fit in. Also I really missed my Stockport 'foster sister' Ruth. We wrote
to each other, and visited, and are still in touch now.”
Many evacuees never left Stockport. They became engaged or married to
local people, found good jobs or started college. Others realised that Guernsey
would have been badly damaged during the Nazi occupation and that their future
in Stockport was more promising. Some returned to Guernsey to find that they
could not settle, and came back to Stockport within weeks. Some evacuees stated
that, back in Guernsey, they were accused of being 'cowards' because they had
left their island to go to England in 1940, which was very upsetting for them.
