MY OLDEST EVACUEE!! VIOLET HATTON IS
101 YRS OLD TOMORROW!
In November 2011, I interviewed a
lovely lady, Violet Hatton, in Guernsey. In June 1940, she was
evacuated from Guernsey with her sisters, mother and her 6 month old
son, Brian. She left her husband Elijah behind. Violet really enjoyed
sharing her family story with me. She is the oldest evacuee that I
have interviewed as she was 99 years old at the time. It was a
fascinating interview and segments of her story feature in my book
'Guernsey Evacuees'. Violet celebrates her 101st birthday
tomorrow, March 15th 2014. Below is a recent photograph of Violet and Brian.
Violet had very strong memories of her
arrival at Weymouth in June 1940 and told me, “There were French
interpreters there, who thought we spoke a foreign language and wore
grass skirts! One of them even showed us how to use an electric
light! They said 'Do you know about electricity?' We told them we
were British citizens and that we had everything in the Channel
Islands.”
Violet and her relatives were sent by
steam train (they had never seen one before) to Stockport in Cheshire
where they were welcomed by the locals. “We liked Stockport,
everyone was so friendly and kind. Brian and I eventually moved in
with a Mrs Bowler on Ash Grove. She could not do enough for us and
all the ladies on our street gave us bedding, furniture and clothing
– we had arrived with nothing you see, we had to leave all our
possessions behind.”
Violet was very surprised when one day,
her husband Elijah turned up at the door. He had left Guernsey a few
days after Violet and somehow managed to trace her in Stockport. She
told me “He had tickets for Guernsey in his hand, and I told him
“We can't go back to Guernsey my dear, it has just been occupied by
the Germans!” It was such a shock for him and he immediately joined
the British Forces. He went to France first but later he was a
Prisoner of War in Japan.”
Over 20,000 Channel Island evacuees
were scattered throughout Britain and they formed Channel Island
Societies so that they could meet up regularly. They organised fund
raising events to buy clothing and furniture as they had all arrived
with practically nothing. The meetings also gave the evacuees the
chance to sit and talk about the friends and family they had left
behind in Guernsey. Violet remembers these meetings: “Every Sunday
we went to Tiviot Dale Church for our meetings, we talked about the
Red Cross letters that had come from home – it was the only way you
could contact Guernsey, just 25 words but they meant such a lot to
us. Now and again we organised trips to Belle Vue Fairground and Zoo.
Brian and I really loved the rides on the bumper cars! ” The
evacuees also held rallies at Belle Vue, and in June 1943, over 6,000
evacuees met up there. The Stockport Society also printed a monthly
evacuee magazine, the 'Channel Islands Monthly Review', which was
bought by evacuees throughout Britain, and sent to Channel Islanders
who were serving in the Forces abroad. A ticket to the 1943 Belle Vue evacuee rally is shown below.
When Guernsey was liberated by the
British, on 9 May 1945, Violet could not make plans to return to
Guernsey. Elijah was still a Prisoner of War. He had been freed in
August 1945 and sent to Rangoon, so Violet had to wait for the
letter that would announce his return home. “Every time the postman
came to my door, I would ask if there was a letter from my husband
and he would sadly reply 'No'. One day, in December 1945, the postman
came to the door and before I could speak, he said 'Here is the
letter that you have been waiting for!' I read it and it said 'I am
OK, I will see you soon.' He came back just in time for Christmas
but only weighed 6 stone, he didn't talk about it much but he had
been forced to build the Burma railway and been beaten with bamboo
canes.”
In April 1946, Violet, Elijah and Brian
returned to Guernsey in time for the first Liberation Day
celebration. “It was lovely to meet up with the rest of our family!
During the war our house had been occupied by German troops so we
went to live with my Mum, then later found a cottage.” Elijah found work as a porter at
Elizabeth College and the family remained in touch with Mrs Bowler
who had been so kind to them in Stockport. Violet told me “She
visited Guernsey several times and it was lovely to show her around
the island. In 1959 my son Brian returned to Stockport where he got
married to a local girl, Beryl, and in 2009 they celebrated fifty
years of marriage.”
The photograph below shows Brian, aged 18 months, with his
teddy bear. Because he was only 6 months old when Violet brought him
to England, he has no memory of those events. He is a member of my
Guernsey Evacuee Community Group, and shares his family's evacuation
story by taking part in our community events. Find out more at:
http://guernseyevacuees.wordpress.com/community-project/
You
can read the opening pages of my first
book, 'Guernsey Evacuees: The
Forgotten evacuees of the Second World War here, free:
