A gran started helping her granddaughter’s school project, and ended up penning a book about her wartime evacuation to St Andrews.
After being asked by her granddaughter to recall what it was like during the Second World War Brenda Howlett-Nye began capturing her personal account on paper which resulted in her first book, Finding Me.
With Remembrance Day approaching, Brenda shares her vivid account of the terror and upheaval she experienced as a little girl living through the war.
During the Blitz her father decided Brenda, her mother and sister should be evacuated from Reigate in Surrey and stay with family in Scotland.
They took the Flying Scotsman, with Brenda told by her mother Hitler liked Scottish people. “It gave us the security of thinking that if the Germans invaded we’d be safe in Scotland,” she said.
By the end of 1941, the trio had returned south.
Two years later, doodlebugs began to plague the South of England and Brenda’s parents were advised it would be safer for children to be evacuated.
Along with her sister she went to Wales, with a label tied to her lapel.
Brenda said that when arriving in Bridgend, she was herded into a hall and ordered to strip to be examined for fleas and lice because the children from the London Blitz before them had been living in shelters and shocking conditions.
She said: “Living through a war was terrifying as a child, and being sent away to complete strangers at such a young age was unnerving, as we only saw my parents once when they came to visit during our evacuation to Wales.
“There’s no doubt that the war affected a whole generation of children.
“We are getting on in life now, which makes it all the more important to remember the experiences we went through, and the sacrifices made by our armed forces as they fought the Nazis.”
