Evacuee memoir: Marion Lewis (nee Fanner)

D EVAC A/1/352

c. 2005

Research Centre for Evacuee and War Child Studies, Marion Lewis, fl. c.1939-2005

Consists of details of an evacuation to Southampton; Chandlers Ford; Bournemouth Southampton Girls Grammar School Memoir concerns Marion (aged 8), her father and stepmother, two brothers (17 and 13), stepbrother (3) and stepsister (1, who died in 1940). The father was an optician whose practice in Southampton was later destroyed in the Blitz and re-established in premises nearby. As soon as war broke out the younger children moved from Southampton, Hampshire, for a week to a cottage 6 miles away. Marion describes how she enjoyed staying there. The family then moved to Chandler's Ford, Eastleigh, Hampshire, where they had bought a house. Marion describes a dogfight over Chandler's Ford that ended in the German plane crashing. She attended the local school until passing the examination for Southampton Girls Grammar School. She was evacuated to Bournemouth, Dorset, sharing premises with the Bournemouth School for Girls. Marion recounts how seven of them were billeted in a boarding house in Lowther Road. The arrangement was unsatisfactory, and they moved to a larger boarding house in Derby Road run by elderly spinsters known as ‘Miss Brace’ and ‘Miss Annie’. Marion stayed for two years. Bournemouth and its sea defences are described as well as the explosion of a mine that destroyed the Hotel Metropole at The Lansdowne. Information about their wartime diet and rationing is given as well as piano lessons from Miss Figgins. After 2½ years five of the girls moved to a Girls' Christian Hostel in Southbourne where Marion thought they were treated well. As the bombing of Southampton eased, the children could visit home occasionally. The memoir recounts hearing a doodlebug on one such occasion while in the garden shelter one night. In 1941/2 the school was moved to empty premises in Boscombe, made vacant by Wentworth School which had been evacuated to Wales. The school and grounds are described. Marion spent three happy years there. When preparations for D-Day were in progress, Marion’s stepbrother obtained treats from Canadian and American troops, and from Italian prisoners of war. In June 1944 Marion's headmistress allowed the girls to watch the ships leaving for the D-Day invasion. The school returned to Southampton, and Marion commuted from Chandler's Ford. Their house in Southampton had been taken over by the army but the family returned after VE Day. [Former reference number EA47]

1 folder

file

University of Reading, ResCEW University of Reading

World War, 1939-1945 - Evacuation of civilians, World War, 1939-1945- Great Britain, World War, 1939-1945 - Children, Southampton, Chandler's Ford, Bournemouth