Free Evacuee Boys by John E. Forbat

moment we got under the doorway, a tremendous explosion shook us and we saw that the house on the other side of the road had been hit and was on fire, together with all the neighbouring houses. A stone fell from our hearts and we felt secure once again. We went to the flat and I went to the window to see what happened in the street. We did not turn on the light because the blackout curtain was not drawn. We heard another bomb falling and she shouted, ‘Get away from the window!’. She dragged me away from the window by force and at that moment all our windows were broken. If she had not dragged me away, I would have been cut up by the broken glass. We thanked God that no harm came to us. We lay down in the cold window-less room and snuggling up to each other we warmed each other up as we went to sleep. We were without windows for two years; it was impossible to get glass and they stuck cardboard in place of the windows. Often at night, when we had to change at Earls Court from the deep Underground to the surface connection to West Kensington, we had to wait for the train under the stairway, because bombs were dropping and it was not safe to go outside on to the platform.
    21 September 1940
    Dear Mum & Dad,

    I have not posted yesterday’s postcard, so I am including it in this letter. Yesterday I received your letter & the 3/6, for which I thank you very much, & I must congratulate you on your lucky escape. It was indeed a thing that we should all be grateful for to the Almighty, that the bomb that fell outside the house was a delayed-action bomb & not a high-explosive one. I hope this will also be a lesson to you, & that you will not take any more chances like that. I hope that the damage has only been slight, & that even if all the windows will be blown in, you will have the consolation that they will never blow in again.
    I am sorry to hear that Mummy has lost her job, but still I hope, that by the time this letter arrives, Daddy will get his job at the B.B.C. I shall hang on to my job for the time being, especially as I want a pair of football boots, & besides I want to save some money for Victory. I have already got 3/- in the savings, & I hope to increase that this week.
    I do not know, whether you know that there are some Hungarian people living in Pembroke Road, their name is Zsötés. They have a little boy of 8 up Bowden Hill (Hocock) who has been evacuated at the beginning of the war, – then he could speak no English at all, & now he is forgotten all his Hungarian.
    I am going to meet John now, & read him your letter, as I only saw him yesterday in the morning, before your letter arrived.

    Lots of love from
    Andrew

    6 October 1940
    Dear Mum & Dad,

    I am sorry I could not write for such a long time, but I suppose you will see that I am very busy nowadays. But to-day I happen to have slightly less work to do.
    I received the Cambridge fee on Friday with many thanks.
    There is very little news to write about, because my daily time table is so very monotonous. School, paper-round, school, homework, bed, every day. We have been having exams for last week & to-day & am doing fairly well.
    Yesterday Mr. Kelly took me out in the car blackberry picking.
    I hope you are all right, & that now you are put up well to sleep somewhere I thought, that my best plan after December will be to get a job straight away, go to evening school & in a couple of years time, when we hope to be English citizens, I can get all the Scholarships that I need for any course that I want to take. I shall only be 18 then & still have plenty of time, by then, I shall have some money saved up too & bear College expenses. I cannot afford t[o] pay any fees now & cannot get any Scholarships. Write & tell me what you think of it.
    There is nothing else to write about, I shall get John to write again this week. Happy New Year (Roshashono was last Thursday & Yom Kipour will be on Saturday. I shall fast) & I hope it will bring more happiness than the