A WARTIME evacuee has recalled her experiences of leaving home during the Second World War. June Harrison was just 12 years old when she arrived at Wanstead High School to be evacuated when the Blitz began in 1940. Now, 72 years later, she visited her old school in Redbridge Lane West to tell a new generation of pupils what it was like to live through the fear of Nazi Germany invading Britain, being moved far away from her family and relying on strict rations to feed the population. The 84-year-old, of Reydon Avenue in Wanstead, said: "Looking back it seems quite dramatic but we started out almost as if we were going away for a holiday. It didn't hit me or any of us that we would be away from home for years." Mrs Harrison arrived with friends Barbara and Jean in Maldon, Essex, along with dozens of schoolmates on a fleet of red London buses. "It was a very different life from just living across the road from school," she said. "It was strange to be in the countryside after growing up in London. We roamed the countryside though, we really enjoyed it." But it was not long before homesickness set in, when Mrs Harrison and her friends were moved to Chippenham after Maldon was considered too vulnerable. She said: "I did get very sad. I wrote to my family but only really saw my parents at Christmas so it was hard sometimes. People would stop us in the street and ask us if we were the evacuees, looking us up and down. It was like we were from another planet. "The rations were well worked out though. We were just fed enough but there would be huge queues to buy sweets each month at the local shop. It was great being with my friends, we were proud to be from Wanstead and stuck together, playing tennis and things." Life suddenly became much more dangerous when Mrs Harrison returned to Wanstead for good in 1942, when she heard V1 rockets overhead while taking her O level exams - now GCSEs. She said: "As long as you heard the engine going you knew you were alright. If they stopped then you were in trouble. We spent half the time taking our exams under the desks." Her family had a close call when a rocket landed in the middle of their road early one morning. "If it had been later we would have been killed. We were lucky to be tucked in bed under eiderdowns becaus they took all the dust and glass. It was nothing unusual though, you had to get on with things." A total 509 houses were destroyed in Wanstead and Woodford over the war, with 1,590 casualties. When the war ended Wanstead High School held a memorial service for the 83 staff and pupils who never returned.

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