I would be very grateful if anyone could point me in the right direction to find out a little more about the evacuation of children from Birkenhead to the English/Welsh border
I was 8 when the war stated but was not evacuated and I remember turning up at Our Ladys school on the morning of the evacuation and being told that the school was closing and to go home. Nobody had thought to tell us beforehand. The few of us that were left watched as corporation buses filled up with evacuees and set off for I believe Connahs Quay which with hindsight was not the best place being not far from a steelworks.I do know that some children from Rock Ferry went to Welshpool.
I worked with a fellow in North Wales in the early 90s, we started at 6.00 am, I was opening up one morning and then had a quick coffee out of the machine, in idle conversation with this man (a very nice man actually) I said where are you from, he repled " same place as you, Birkenhead" when I looked baffled, he said he was evacuated out there at the beginning of the war, he would have been under 10 at the time, I asked him why he didn't go home after the War he said," back to a 2 up 2 down terraced house with 7 brothers and sisters, not a hope in hell. He was billeted with a couple who adopted him in the end. He spoke fluent Welsh, in fact, as far as he was concerned he was Welsh, he was one of the ones with a happy ending. (he was so impressed with the green fields, animals and Butter) I know what he meant about Butter, when the rationing finished my Mother said we'll never eat Margarine again, she actually called it axle grease, and I never have
my mother and her two brothers were all evacuated from star street Birkenhead to the surrounding area of Welshpool and newtown in mid wales they came back 6 years later to find they had more brothers and sisters as my grandfather was a train driver which was a reserved occupation