TIMES PAST ‘I felt homesick but copies of the Dandy went down a treat’
OUTSIDE the big school building at Charing Cross, his small suitcase in one hand, Dan Harris waved goodbye to his parents and took his place in the queue.
He was eight years old, and the next day he would be on his way to Nova Scotia, one of 2664 young people evacuated by the Children’s Overseas Reception Board during the Second World War.
On August 10, 1940 – 80 years almost to the day – Dan left Greenock on the SS Duchess of York, bound for Canada, where he would spend the next four years.
“I would love to hear from anyone who was on that boat too, all those years ago,” smiles Dan, who now lives in East Kilbride.
“I remember feeling sad to leave my parents, but it felt like an adventure.”
He adds: “We were all told to keep it a secret, and that no one must know where we were going.
“We had to stay overnight in the school at Charing Cross, and the next morning, kids out playing football in the playground shouted up to us to ask what we were doing.”
Dan adds, with a laugh: “We yelled out the windows that we were going to Canada on a ship. So much for secrecy…”
The CORB scheme, during a critical period of the war, was intended as a ‘temporary exile’ for British children, as fears grew of a German invasion.
They were sent, mainly, to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and some to the US.
“The voyage was great fun – these were big, luxury liners, and it was exciting, as a child, to watch the sailors practising using the anti-aircraft guns,” says Dan.
“The way home, four years later, was a different kettle of fish.
“We were older, we knew what war meant.
“We were much more aware the dangers we faced.”
In Canada, Dan stayed with his aunt Annie, uncle Andy and cousins Helen and Jimmy, in “a glorious house, with fruit orchards and fields for 50 miles all around”.
He adds: “I arrived just a few weeks before my ninth birthday.
“My brother, Billy, was only five so he was too young to come.
“Thousands of families applied, so I felt privileged to get to go.
“It was quite a different life from growing up in a room and kitchen in Maryhill.”
Dan missed his parents and brother – he recalls his first Christof