Landrake with St. Erney - a rural parish in south east Cornwall.
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Memories
Jean Pellow remembers the war years:
As a young schoolgirl, I remember a few things about the last war. One particular thing does stand out in my mind and that is how my father, Mr Wesley Thomas, of 5 The Crescent, Landrake, became the Billeting Officer. As he was a County Council Official, his work was involved with school children, he being the Attendance Officer.
One morning, very early, I remember him going to our village hall to prepare for evacuees coming from London. Many coaches were at North Road Station in Plymouth to meet these children from the train.
Eventually they arrived at Landrake mid morning where there were refreshments awaiting them. ‘A very heart breaking scene’, I recall him saying - Some children crying, some laughing, some happy and sad and so on.
After the refreshments were over, and a little peace and quiet, my father had the hard task of finding suitable homes for these children. The area covered for the billeting was Landrake and the outlying areas - Every householder was expected to take one, two or more children depending on the size of their house or the number of bedrooms they had. Some of the children came from large families, which meant they had to be parted and that was another heartbreak.
Sorting out these children couldn’t possibly be done in one day so those who were not lucky enough to be found homes had to sleep in the hall that night. Once all the accommodation had been sorted out the next lot of problems began with badly behaved children, grieving children and so on. People came to our house from near and far with their many problems, and queues formed from our back door to the end of a very long path, but my father dealt with this patiently.
Our house wasn’t our home for a very long time.About the Parish
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August 2008
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