Oswaldtwistle wartime evacuee says thank you in book (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Oswaldtwistle wartime evacuee says thank you in book

2:30pm Thursday 18th February 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(1)

AN AUTHOR has thanked the people of Hyndburn for the welcome he experienced as a wartime evacuee in a newly published autobiography.

Wearing a luggage label, nine-year-old Londoner Brian Lynch was placed on a train in 1940 with his younger brother, baby sister and his mum, who was determined to find a place where she could stay with her family.

The 79-year-old said he still vividly remembers the journey, and decided to share his story.

Brian, a retired journalist, said the family was one of the largest on the train and knew it would be a tall order to find a place where they could stay together.

The children were told by their mother that it was ‘all or none’ – and that they would have to return to London, where pilotless bombs or doodlebugs had started being dropped, if they were not housed together.

Luckily, they were collected by an Oswaldtwistle lady ‘with a posh car and big manor house’ – far from the grim prospect they had feared when they had waved farewell to their father that morning.

Brian said: “Dad had kissed us all goodbye, ordered me to take care of mum and Roy, and I remember very clearly how he turned and strode away without a backward glance. It wasn’t until years later when he admitted he had done so because he was crying his eyes out.

“We stumbled off the train onto a platform where we were met by a lot of kindly ladies all talking like Gracie Fields.

“After a meal and a night’s sleep in a big hall, we became part of the ‘cattle market’ as crowds of people came during the morning.”

The family was taken in by the ‘wonderful’ Mrs Broughton, a mill owner’s widow who lived at Stanhill Villa, who asked Brian’s mum if she would be prepared to help out at the house in exchange for taking them in.

* Naked Knees and Blakey’d Boots: Reminiscences of a Dagenham Urchin is available now.