An evacuee

By Janet Adler

I first came to Kettering as a "baby evacuee" ie with my mother.  We remained for the duration of the war, my father having first been a billeting officer and then called up for active service.   We were first billeted with some people whom I do not remember then with a lovely man called Tom Wright who, as I was so little was to all intents and purposes a surrogate father.  He was a widower and had generously offered his little two up two down house in Green Lane as a haven for evacuees.  After a year or so the bombing was growing worse in London and he was persuaded to take in two more children from a family in Catford (it should have been 3 as two were inseparable twins but there was just not the room and one twin slept with a neighbour).  How my young unexperienced mother coped I do not know.

My memories of that time are somewhat vague - I remember the cattle market (now a car park I believe) and, of course, Wicksteed Park.  After the war we remained in touch with Uncle Tom and visited him at Easter and he with us at Christmas time until his death in 1953.  However, our links remained as my Uncle had a clothes factory in Kettering and his son carried on the business.

That's another story.  I often wonder if the monkey puzzle tree in the front garden of the house in Green Lane is still there!

I have no pictures I'm afraid