Cornish Memories of an Evacuee

The true story recounts an evacuee's train journey to Cornwall

Terry Frisby was just seven years old when he was evacuated to Cornwall, along with his older brother Jack. It was June 1940.

Wearing labels, carrying gas masks and small suitcases, the young 'vackies' waited for the steam train to carry them to Cornwall and their new lives.

Terry and Jack swapped the newly built streets of suburban London for the tiny Cornish hamlet of Doublebois.

Now Terry has written Kisses on a Postcard about his childhood.

Terry Frisby has written about his childhood memories of Cornwall in the '40s

The young Terry Frisby had moved away from the terrors of war torn London in 1940 to the quiet life of south east Cornwall. The woods and river became his playground, rabbit-catching and night-fishing were the new pastimes. Kisses on a Postcard is the story of Terry's Wartime Childhood.

Picked at random from the group of evacuees by a middle-aged couple, the brothers discover that the main London to Penzance line runs through a cutting right below the tiny terraced cottage where they are to live, the goods yard and sidings lie a couple of hundred yards down the line: to Jack and Terry, sons of a railwayman, No. 7 the Railway Cottages seems the perfect new home.

The book's title, Kisses on a Postcard came from a special code developed by Terry Frisby's mother. Click on the audio link to hear the story.

The true story is full of colour, humour and the unselfish love that Uncle Jack, an irreverent Welsh ex-miner, and his generous wife Auntie Rose, offer without reserve to the two young strangers. And despite fierce rivalry between local kids and the 'vackies', village life seems wonderful to the boys.

However the bombing of nearby Plymouth and some dreadful news from the battlefield shatter the peace of Doublebois. These are reminders of the brutal reality of a war which at times had seemed so far away.

Kisses on a Postcard is published by Bloomsbury.