JUVENILE EVACUEES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 September 1940, Page 3

JUVENILE EVACUEES

EXPERIENCES OF VILLAGERS CHANGE IN ATTITUDE. ’

CHILDREN WHO WERE WANTED BACK. Ephraim explained, dropping it in chunks over his shoulder as he marshalled the children into the bus, states R. C. in the “Manchester Guardian.” “It’s t’ Guv’ment,” and manner and tone alike conveyed that that vague authority with which he comes into contact when as village carrier he journeys over the fell to the market town has been up to its waywardness again. “Aye, it’s t’ Guv’ment. Changed its mind again.”

The slam of the door as the last child entered, the vehicle was eloquent. "They’ve bethought ’em to oppen t' schooils ageean, and they wants t’ bairns back.” He climbed to his seat at the wheel, leaned out, and grinned. “Ye'll nooan be sorry to be shut ol ’em, I’ll warrant," with a backward jerk of his head at his load. Six months before Scarbank would have agreed. It had not received its little guests willingly. The village did not lack hospitality. In this it ran true to dales tradition, but there was hesitation when it was suddenly called upon to house a score or so of town children. They came at short notice, and Scarbank, which lives and thinks unhurriedly and is strenuous only at haytiming, requires plenty of time for consideration when called upon to face a new situation. Nor was Ephraim helpful as he unloaded his bus. ‘•Them’s ’em,” he grinned, jerking a thumb at the little crowd bunched together on the green. ‘‘Sumbody hes summat on wi’ that lot. Nivver hed sich. a load. Full o' divvlement; climbing all ovver t" bus till I sed 1 d chuck ’em out if they weren’t still. All t’ way thro’ t’ station. A poke o’ monkeys: that's what they are.”

At the moment there was little sign of high spirits or of mischievousness in the group of pale-faced, thin, none-too-well-clad. children. The excitement of the 12-mile drive up dale was evaporating. The scene that presented itself to town eyes was of an inconceivable emptiness, and its amplitude was beginning to awe them. Home, narrow, familiar streets, suddenly seemed far away. They bunched together, twittering, whispering, clutching their meagre parcels; some wept. It was a business getting them housed. It seemed a hopeless task when four lads were left and all available accommodation had been obtained, until Craven, his wife already settling three girls in her spare room, had, unwontedly, an idea. There was that chamber in the hayloft where he slept his Irishmen at haytiming. They could bed down there for a bit with blankets and bracken. And in

blankets and bracken they bedded until Hustwick, the wheelwright, from lumber in his workshop which he and three generations of forbears had accumulated, found enough material to assemble two beds.

In three days the youngsters were chirpy again, and went forth and possessed the village. Ephraim’s term was justified; they received others. They were limbs, Tie divvies, ajid before the week was out Scarbank unashamedly said it would be glad to be shut of them. Not an unwritten law of the farming country but was broken. Poultry and sheep were chased. Gates were left open, roods of wall, dry walling, some of it a hundred years old and more, crumbled under their assault.

There came a day when the I'ilest divvic, Tom Smith, was fished out of the long stone drinking trough, and his hostess. Mrs Lister, had to skewer him up in a blanket and set him in a deep chair before the kitchen fire, his hands and feet alone free, whilst his wardrobe dried in the oven. The implications of it came home to the women, and a wave of pity surged. From old oak kists and other recesses garments were retrieved and reduced in latitude and longitude until every child had a sufficiency. The results were odd to the eye, but thin bodies already responding to farmhouse fare were kept warm in the succeeding bitter winter. And with other eyes Scarbank began to see its small guests. Saucy they might be, impudent, with language that at times shocked, but they were eager, took bright-eyed interest in the smallest of farm doings, and were willing to be of service. There was no lack of them to twin churn handles on butter-making days, to work the separator, to carry milk pails and fodder. A bunch of them struggled in Craven's tracks when that anxious farmer climbed the moor to rescue snowbound sheep; one enthusiast carried a garden rake. They were not overly helpful, but they carried an atmosphere, chattering away, as Craven told his wife later, like a hedgeful of shepsters. And when they deserted him suddenly at the call to dinner the old farmer, for the first time in his life, felt something of the loneliness of the moors. As Ephraim's bus roared up the fell side and faded from sight and sound something of the old quietness of the village came creeping back. But it is a quietness that lies heavily. There is restlessness, some resentment. Something has gone from the village life. No laughter rises from the green; thin, hich-pitched. almost too shrill, but wholesome music. Twinkling feet no longer race across the grass and fly over the bridge; no children chase hotfoot and eager on errands. Milkingtime, the grooming of the horses are tasks done without a group of wideeyed onlookers firing off questions and thrilled with interest.

Ephraim has come tearing down the fellside with news and excitement written on every contour of him. T’childer is likely to be coming back. "Guv'ment,” he explains, "once again, has been thinking it over again and is for sending ’em all back." The news has gone through the village like a summer breeze. Scarbank has visibly brightened, yet it is censorious. Lister has expressed it. “Backwuds and forrads. backwuds and forrads, wecaring t’ childer to skin and bone wi’ t’ job. Time as sumbody knew their own minds.”