One way ticket to Ebbw Vale By Rowland Powell (From Penarth Times)

One way ticket to Ebbw Vale By Rowland Powell

DESPITE my protests my father was adamant - I had to leave home for my own good.

And since my mother had died in 1938, I no longer had a sympathy vote.

It was June 1940 and my school in Dover, along with many others in East Kent, were about to be evacuated.

And so on Sunday, June 2, despite a week's notice, getting me away ended in a mad rush to the pick-up point for the eight mile journey to school to be swiftly mustered, then marched in crocodile to Dover Station.

Our flagging spirits were boosted by the sight of the Grammar School girls already on the train, until we found ourselves at the other end with the teachers in between.

We had hardly settled before the train was off along the coast to Folkestone and then inland at the start a long, exhausting day of non-stop travelling.

By midday, on the outskirts of London, the train changed direction, heading Southwest through Surrey, Hampshire, Wiltshire and into Somerset.

It was late afternoon when the train halted at a signal on an embankment overlooking a row of houses.

We must have looked a sorry sight hanging from the windows seeking air for, suddenly, the bank came alive with people carrying bottles of pop and jugs of tea and water - an act of spontaneous kindness I have never forgotten.

On our way again we soon reached Newport where we were allowed to stretch our legs briefly before being ordered back on the train for the last leg of our journey, downcast - the girls had been left behind.

A long climb through a heavily industrialised valley finally ended at a deserted station but we were swiftly marshalled into cars and buses, that suddenly appeared from nowhere, to be taken to a large school.

Inside, we met our foster parents and learned that our one way tickets had expired at Ebbw Vale.