Betty Rose grew up one of seven children in her family home in Essex. She was a “free-spirit”, along with the rest of the children, and was excited about the prospect of being evacuated with her two sisters. Her brothers didn’t go.
First they were evacuated to Caister, Norfolk for ten months. They went on a boat from the docks around the coast to get there, and she can remember thinking it was “the thrill of a lifetime”. They stayed with a trawlerman and his family, who were very good to them, before they were moved on to billets in Wilnecote, near Tamworth.
In this audio clip Betty talks about the billeting process at Wilnecote, and her first night there with her new hosts:-
Transcript of Betty Rose’s audio clip
The three girls were split up in Wilnecote, with her youngest sister living with a family over a sweet shop. Betty and her middle sister stayed with a young couple who treated them well, and then her mother and brothers came up and were billeted with an older lady nearby. After a while, the whole family moved into an old farmhouse together; she was ecstatic to be reunited with them.