On 3^rd September 1939 at 11.15am Neville Chamberlain broadcast on the BBC that a ‘state of war existed between Britain and Germany’. It was not unexpected, and many plans had been put into place mitigating its effect on schoolchildren.

At St Gerard Majella Roman Catholic School in Cranmer Street, Vauxhall, Liverpool, one set of children had already been evacuated to Shropshire (on the 1^st September, see Sarah Tabuns account), while Joseph Phelan, this account, was part of a second group, evacuated on the day War was declared. This is Joe’s account.

Joe, six years old at the time, remembers being called together with other children and lined up in twos on the pavement outside AB Young’s furniture shop between Athol Street and Hankin Street. He was with his sister, Elizabeth who was nine and, like all elder siblings, was under instruction to look after him. According to Elizabeth Joe cried nearly all day.

At approximately 10am they started off in their pairs to walk the 1.5km to Sandhills train station. They didn’t really know where they were going and why – ‘we knew War was coming but didn’t know what it was or how it would affect us’. At the station a register was taken by teachers Miss Lee (who had travelled to Shropshire with the first group of children) and Miss Whiley, and all the children loaded on to the waiting carriages. Joe continues…

‘When the register was complete the guard blew his whistle and the train started to move off. (With the atmosphere) it certainly didn’t feel like we were going to New Brighton’.

‘Then the tears really started and I wasn’t the only one crying. In an effort to cheer me up Elizabeth suggested I have a piece of my chocolate – we had all been given a large bar of Cadbury’s chocolate. I turned everything out of my pillowcase of belongings and searched by army green cardboard gas mask container, nothing, someone had found my chocolate bar before I’d lost it! There were more tears.

After what seemed like days we arrived (in what I now know) was the little station of Prees, Shropshire. For a little lad like me from the built up enclosure of Liverpool Prees seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, literally. We filed off the train and got onto buses which took us to Whixall C of E School (now the Community Centre). Here we were given a meal and then allowed to go and play (run of steam) in a big field next door. After about five minutes of running about I managed to fall into a big bed of nettles. Yes, you’ve guessed it, more tears.

Back in the School Hall local people had started to arrive to pick-up (Joe uses the word choose) their evacuees. A Mr Darlington, of Whixall Hall, had chosen to take Elizabeth but, true to what she had been told, she told Mr Darlington ‘mom has said we are not to be separated’. Mr Darlington then agreed to take me too.

Sitting next to us were Rita (the older sister aged about ten) and Barbara/Brenda Moore (about eight). Rita asked Mr Darlington if they could come with us as well. And that was how Mr and Mrs Darlington accepted four of us into their house rather than the one, or two, they were expecting. For us the War years were to be spent at Whixall Hall.

My first day of evacuation was filled with memories. The walk to the station, my chocolate loss, the train ride then bus ride, the bed of nettles, and then to cap it all my first experience in a car. Mr Darlington had a car, in fact he had two but only used one during the war. It was a Morris, dark in colour, and he used it to drive us all back to Whixall Hall.

The following morning I woke to the sounds of cows mooing and hens cackling. I had one big bedroom to myself while all three girls shared another. Whixall Hall was a big house, it looked and felt ‘rich’ compared to our house back in Hancon Street, Kirkdale, Liverpool. There we had one downstairs room, one middle room on the next floor and then a top floor garret – which was where I slept. The toilet was in the yard. Whixall Hall was large, well furnished, and there were even parts of the house that weren’t used everyday! As I drew the curtains of my bedroom on that first morning I thought ‘this is a good place’.

Besides Elizabeth and me, Rita and Barbara, Mr and Mrs Darlington had three daughters of their own (Josephine, Emmy and Lillian). We all had bedrooms on the first floor, and there was even a bathroom. Elsewhere in the house there we two big rooms we used as play rooms. They used to be used for making cheese but were no longer in use. I remember one room had a big vat in it where they used to make and store the cheese (at one time during the war milk-tankers couldn’t get though so I recall this vat being put back into use for milk storage until the tankers appeared again). The other room was smaller and had two or three metal presses to press the cheese. We would use these presses to press flowers in books for use at school. I remember eating meals in a large room with a large fire, possibly a farmyard kitchen. I have fond memories of sitting in front of that fire reading books. We never did use the posh dining room, I suppose the occasion never arose’.

Being a six-year old boy when I was evacuated my memories are mostly of the farm, then church and lastly, as you’d expect, about school. One memory from early on which is possibly a reflection of where I was compared to where I came from happened about six months after my arrival at Whixall. Elizabeth and I were to return to Liverpool for our older sister Mary’s wedding. Mary, in her early 20’s was to marry Jimmy (also known as Robbie after his surname of Roberts), who was in the army. Mr Darlington was driving us to the station in Whitchurch but before we got there I changed my mind, I didn’t want to go. I had really begun to like where I was, we did things differently, I felt happy and didn’t want to go back to Liverpool. Needless to say I missed the wedding.

School. We went to the local school which was a walk of about one and half miles each way down country lanes. All of us evacuees were taught in two class by our own teachers who had come with us – Miss Lee and Miss Whiley. I remember receiving a basic education of maths and English (and not much else). I do recall I enjoyed it. We were taught more one-to-one and during the war the whole class grew and learnt together for four whole years. We didn’t mix much with the local children who were taught separately (they were Church of England) although we did mix together in the playground. But, again, I don’t recall much mixing for myself until I went into the Headmaster’s class (Mr Green) which was for a short spell before I returned to Liverpool at the end of the war.

I didn’t ‘play’ much when we were back at the Hall as I was one boy in amongst four girls (Lillian was away at University). I had to wait until Mr Darlington’s grandson Owen (about two years younger than me) came round and then we played Cowboys and Indians.

I have a faint recollection of going on a school trip to Rhyl from Whixall. It can’t have been that good!

Church. On Sundays we attended Mass at 10am. This was at Whixall School as there were no churches of our religion locally. After Mass we would walk the two miles home for dinner, before attending the local Sunday School at the chapel with Mr Darlington’s family after tea. The Sunday School presented us with a book at Christmas (I can’t remember what mine was) and it was after this Sunday School was cancelled as our local priest Father Riley probably frowned upon it as too much familiarity.

The Darlington’s were I think Wesleyan Methodists. I did remember the service being boring for a lad of my age. They would have a different preacher each Sunday and sometimes it would be one of the local farmers who I’d see around the lanes who would be in the pulpit. Elizabeth used to take a small reading book with her and place it inside the prayer book. So there would be me trying not to get bored while Elizabeth was reading her way through a more entertaining book. If I’d have done that I’d have got ‘caught’ but Elizabeth never did.

I remember that Mr Darlington had lovely gardens around the house. He had lots of rose bushes and so, before we set off for chapel, he would select one, usually yellow, for his buttonhole. He would then select one for me too, so both of us attended chapel adorned with roses.

Farm. The farm at Whixall Hall was a big farm – about 300 acres – although Mr Darlington did too have a smaller farm not too far away. I think you’d call him today a ‘Gentleman Farmer’ he didn’t actually work other that organising everyone else.

The Big Farm was cattle, presumably dairy as they were all milked. I remember the cattle all coming to the gates, automatically without herding, about 4pm every day. They would all line up at the gates and when they were opened they would walk straight into the milking sheds. The milking was ‘automatic’ and only became a little difficult when a cow got a bit awkward. I was too young to milk although I tried it once – I just couldn’t get the right rhythm or pressure. Often I would get squirted with milk by one of the farm hands as he milked the cows, all good-natured.

Mr Darlington always gave me jobs around the farm. Looking back I’m not sure whether they were actually jobs, he was giving me responsible things to do building my confidence, installing discipline and teaching me responsibility. On one occasion, when I think I was about nine, he gave me the job of taking a horse to the blacksmiths to be shod. The blacksmiths was about two miles away – so there was me sat bareback on a large shire horse for two miles. When I got there and got off I could hardly walk. I don’t remember the journey back.

On another occasion he had a heffer at the smaller farm that he wanted moving to the Big Farm. He showed me the back lane to take, to avoid traffic (although there wasn’t much in Whixall), gave me a stick and told me to get on with it. So, there was me, not yet ten, walking/guiding a heffer down lanes with nothing but a stick for over a mile. To this day I have no idea why he wanted that heffer moved but I did it, on my own. I felt good, but also I felt useful, if I hadn’t done it one of the farmhands would have had to be taken off another job to do it.

Another job was collecting the eggs. This we all did with Josephine (the oldest Darlington daughter) going around all the hen sheds that were scattered about the farm. We did two rounds a day one early morning and one about 5pm and the biggest task was to find the double-yolkers – those eggs that were bigger and darker than the more typical single yolk eggs. Looking back this was a task we all did because, at other times, tasks were separated. Me doing mine and the girls doing theirs.

On one occasion I tried to kill a chicken. I used to watch the farmhands doing it and I wanted to do it too. I caught one of the hens and tried to pull its neck. I pulled and pulled without effect. In the end I let it go and it googled off slightly the worse for wear followed by a humble apology from me.

At harvest time I remember the rats. The corn was brought into the shed where it was stored for a while, and it was here that the rats used to take up residence burrowing into the stacks. As the corn was used and the pile got smaller it would get to the time when all of the rats were concentrated in the bottom. There would come a time when all of the farmhands, with their pitch forks and dogs, would surround the stack and wait. As rats appeared death would await. My job was not to kill the rats but to collect all of the dead ones at the end.

When I was about ten Dr Darlington took me off to show me how to harvest mangles. He obviously thought I was old and responsible enough to wave a sharpened tool about. He showed me how to pull it out of the ground by its leaves, cut off its root and stack it for storage. It was all about rhythm – pick and pull left hand, cut off root with scythe in right hand, then swing and dump into stack.

My last recollection is written into Whixall folklore. I don’t remember how old I was but at some point I and Owen (Mr Darlington’s grandson) found ourselves in a small copse of trees with Owen possessing some matches. We started a small fire which generated smoke that was seen by others at the Hall. On investigating they found us both frantically trying to get a bigger bonfire going, and not very well at that (fortunately). We were taken back and put straight to bed. Unfortunately, as I was the older, I had most of the blame although it was Owen who had ‘found’ the matches.

As the war was coming to an end we were moved back to Liverpool. Initially this was just for a couple of weeks before we made a final move several months later. I don’t recall any major problems in fitting back in but we were strangers. We were now country folk and had lost our Liverpudlian accents. But society was different, we had lived through a war, you just took life as it came.

When I finally returned to Liverpool there were probably as many tears as when I came. Whixall had been my making, I loved it (thank you Mr Hitler) but for the war my future may have been very different. Mr Darlington was emotional, he considered he was losing another son and that we would never meet again. I owe him a big debt he taught me all I know and instilled in me a respect for myself and others.

I looked up to Mr Darlington I admired him and I consider he thought of me as (another) son. He had two sons one of whom died just before the war and the other, Lloyd, who was still at the Hall when we got there but got married and moved shortly after to another family farm. I didn’t know my own father well and I think he died of TB. My recollection is being excluded from the hospital in the rain during visiting and of a carriage pulled by horses at his funeral. Mr Darlington became my substitute father.

The war was a terrible thing, many died, but for me it was my making. Out of everything so bad came something that was good. I am a better man and had a better life as a child for which I will always be grateful. I thank Mr and Mrs Darlington and their family for looking after Elizabeth and I during the War years.

With thanks to Joseph’s daughter, Gillian, and Grace Thorne for allowing Joseph to collect his thoughts and memories for this article. Unfortunately Joseph died early 2021.