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Archiver > CORNISH > 2002-11 > 1036772182
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Subject: [CON] Re: CORNISH-D Digest V02 #659Evacuees in Cornwall
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 11:16:22 EST
In a message dated 06/11/02 , David Oates wrote:
> I was interested to see the corresp[ondence about children coming to
> Cornwall in war-time. Listers may be interested in this extract from my
> unpublished family anecdotes which refers t0o that time for one child in
> west Cornwall and seems reasonably typical
I have vivid recollections of my uncle and aunt having four boys from two
separate families from different parts of London being billeted on them
without any warning,and looking back I see a complex set of relationships, as
well as different cultures thrust together (2 of the boys were Jewish so that
was another dimension,) Cockneys and Cornish are not easy bedfellows. We
locals mistrusted the "London sharpers" who knew everything and were more
adventurous than we were, but who were pretty ignorant about the countryside,
tended to ignore warnings about the dangers of mine shafts, etc. We certainly
spoke different languages and perceived life differently.
I think they found the food different too. Cornish saffron cake was a far
cry from "fancies from the Co-op" which one family demanded, and which my
aunt could not afford. On the other hand they found the fresh garden produce
to their liking.
Yet in a strange way it worked out and over the space of a few years some
accommodation was reached. I admire my uncle and aunt who had no children of
their own for the instinctive way that they coped without any help from
social workers or text books on sociology and family relationships.
Bill Stephens CFHS 07127 SOG 20357
In rain-sodden Bucks, UK
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