Return journey for the girl who lost her childhood when the world went to war

DOREEN Drewry Lehr was just three years old when she was separated from her mother.

She was one of the 1.5 million children in Britain who were evacuated during the Second World War. The evacuation, codenamed Operation Pied Piper, was part of a government plan to get children out of the big towns and cities.

The rationale behind this migration was straightforward. By the summer of 1940, Hitler's invasion forces were gathering in northern France and it was felt that children would be better off beyond the reach of the Luftwaffe's bombs. In the first few months of the war, there were tearful farewells at train stations up and down the country as children, each carrying a gas mask and an identity label, were packed off to the countryside out of harm's way.

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The popular image of this mass evacuation, and one perpetuated by the newsreels at the time, was of working-class kids transported from dirty inner-city slums to a peaceful rural idyll. For some, the evacuation undoubtedly was a happy experience, a kind of adventure holiday, but for many youngsters it was a traumatic experience that left them scarred for life.

Not only that, but the evacuation story itself has become little more than a footnote of the war despite the fact it affected so many people. For Doreen Lehr, it was an experience she felt compelled to find out more about. After spending years leafing through her own back pages, she has written a book, A Girl's War – A Childhood lost in Britain's WWII evacuation. Part memoir and part detective story, it pieces together her forgotten life during the war which she spent at the Linton Camp School, in Wharfedale.

The local authorities in Bradford decided to send the most vulnerable children, including orphans, to the camp and Doreen was three years old when she arrived there in 1940. "They didn't normally let children under the age of seven in, but my father had died and my brother was already there so it was decided that this was the best place for me to be."

Doreen, a retired professor now living in the United States, spent the duration of the war at the school and wanted to find out more, not only about the school but also the evacuation and the effect it had on people. "It was something that kept nagging me at the back of my mind. I knew I had gone to Linton School but I wanted to find out why I'd been sent there because your childhood is the foundation upon which your life is built."

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She first began gathering information more than 30 years ago, but when her mother and brother died within 12 months of one another she decided the only way to find out more was to speak to those who had been at the school at the same time.

So, back in 1998, she placed an advert in the Yorkshire Post appealing for former pupils to get in touch. To her surprise, among those who replied were three teachers, Frank Newbould, Winifred Lowcock and Ailsa Williams. The four of them met up at Betty's tea rooms in Ilkley – the first time the teachers had seen other in 50 years.

As well as catching up on gossip and old memories, the teachers were amazed to discover they all lived within just a few miles of each other.

"It was as though they had never been apart and they were able to talk to me about life at Linton, which they remembered with great fondness," says Doreen. "It was like having a family in Yorkshire. I was enthralled listening to their stories, they were absolute fountains of knowledge and my biggest regret is that I wasn't able to finish the book before two of them died."

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Doreen, now 73, was one of more than 200 children who were sent to Linton. Her family lived in Shipley but when her father died she and her brother, Keith, were sent away. "People say what awful parents they must have been to send their children away, but they don't understand what it was like in 1940, it was a different place from the world we live in today. The country was at war and at one point the enemy was 22 miles away from England and people were expecting an invasion."

While gathering her research, she spent a lot of time talking to fellow evacuees about their wartime experiences and says many of them asked the same question. "They wanted to know why they had been sent away and some still resented their parents for it, which is an awful thing to live with."

However, she has sympathy with parents who took the agonising decision to send their children away. "My mother's life was pretty awful back then. My father became ill and died and she couldn't do much else. Women were needed for the war effort and it was much easier if the children were shipped off somewhere."

Doreen, who married and moved to the United States during the 1960s, believes the image of child evacuees differs from the reality. "The enduring stereotype is that evacuees came from the slums of London, but that's not true, they came from all strata of society. Those who could afford to sent their children abroad, but most people couldn't do that."

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Her own memories of life at Linton are sketchy. "I can remember the food. We used to have these great big tins of watery powdered eggs for breakfast and this weird-looking bread the size of doorsteps. The school was a prefab building

and we did have showers which not many other people had at that time."

She says the experiences of evacuees varied depending on their age. "The older children often fared better than the younger ones. They knew what the war was about but the young ones, like me, didn't have a clue. What do you know when you're three years old? For some children it was a big adventure but I didn't enjoy it because I was so young. If children were exposed to this today some people would probably say it was harsh. But, of course, it was a different time and the teachers were all volunteers and they did their best. I really commend them for what they did because they tried to look after us in what were very difficult circumstances."

When the war ended, most the children were reunited with their families, but the experience of being separated from their parents stayed with them. "For years after I left the school, I believed I'd come from an orphanage, but in writing the book I've been able to piece together a part of my life that I always felt was missing," she says.

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"I talked with a chap from Leeds a few years ago who had been at Bewerley Park Camp School at Pateley Bridge. He told me that he had felt alone for his entire life and then he went to a reunion at the school and finally, he said, 'I knew I wasn't alone.' I'm fortunate enough to have been able to further my education and I hope that my story helps those who, even today, remain voiceless."

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