‘I recall thinking for the first time that everything was going to be OK’

HARRY NORTON / 90 WARTIME EVACUEE

I was born in the East End of London and was evacuated in 1939 with the declaration of war. My stepfather was away at sea with the merchant navy so my mother and all the children were evacuated. My brother, Bill, and I were sent away together and the rest of the family went somewhere else – I didn’t see them for five years after that.

Things were very tough growing up, it’s hard to describe the poverty in those days. We lived in rented accommodation in the East End and it was pretty desperate. When my brother and I were evacuated to Leek, in Staffordshire, we were left on the pavement for people to come and pick us up. I got chosen up by one lady and my brother by another. We would see each other occasionally but it was a pretty grim situation – unthinkable now.

Fortunately for me I got taken in by a nice couple. They had two sons who were serving with the Royal Marines and they changed my life, no doubt about that. They still lived in a council house but the woman was a farmer’s daughter who had been privately educated and suddenly I had all these things I had never really experienced before: good food to eat, everything clean and tidy and proper conversation.

I would watch the Luftwaffe bomb Cov

entry from my bedroom. You could hear the thudding bombs and the sky would turn blood red. That was the only time I was really frightened. There was a big American air base close to Leek and they used to come into town in their jeeps. As kids we would ask them, ‘Any gum, chum?’ to try and get a stick of Juicy Fruit. They were very generous people and good fun – the girls loved them.

When VE Day came I was 14 years old and working as a budding reporter at the local newspaper, the Leek Post & Times. Our office was in the middle of town close to the Nicholson War Memorial, which was built after the First World War by a factory owner grieving for his son who was killed at Ypres. In the evening the whole of Leek was jumping around this monument. Bands were playing. I can remember the crowds singing Vera Lynn songs.

Dancing is not my forte so I was more on the sidelines. It was only when I was walking home that the enormity of it started to sink in. I remember thinking for the first time that everything was going to be OK. After the war I was reunited with my family – we were strangers really after so long apart, but that soon changed.

The war affected everybody and I suppose this virus is the same, although with one big difference – we aren’t getting bombed any more. Watching everybody clap for the NHS workers seemed a moment of real national unity. I wonder what things will be like when all this is over.