Tony Bird was evacuated to Lampeter at the very beginning of 1940, when he was 16 years old. He was born in Cowbridge but at the time of the outbreak of the Second World War he was a pupil at Wycliffe College, a boarding school in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire. The premises of Wycliffe College were chosen as suitable for the relocation of the Air Ministry which needed to be moved out of London to avoid the danger of bombing. The decision was made late in 1939 to move the whole of Wycliffe College to St David’s College in Lampeter.
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| St David's College building |
As Tony was already used to living away from home at his boarding school, the idea of evacuation did not come as much of a shock to him, as it must have done to the many children who were accustomed to living at home. Tony was one of three children in his family, but his brother and sister being older than him were not involved in evacuation plans. His parents, used to his being away from home in term time, were not too concerned about the change of location.
It was Tony’s father who took him to Lampeter for the first time for the start of term in 1940. They travelled by car, and no doubt in those days his father would have had a problem getting petrol for a fairly lengthy journey. Tony remembers that his father, unfamiliar with the local roads in Wales, went too fast over a hump backed bridge - he thinks it was probably at Pumpsaint - and Tony sitting at the back was thrown up and hit his head hard on the roof of the car.
Tony’s first impressions of the rooms in St Davids College were that they were spartan. Two boys shared each little study room. The winter of 1940 was exceptionally severe and the communal bathrooms in particular were bitterly cold, the boys sometimes having to unfreeze the taps in order to get water to wash. One positive memory of that winter though was that the boys were able to go skating. A lake on the outskirts of Lampeter froze over for about six weeks and it seems that an enterprising iron-monger’s shop in Lampeter was able to get a supply of skates for people to buy.
The adjustment to living in a new place was not difficult for Tony, as the entire school had been brought to Lampeter, including all the staff, their wives and children, and lessons continued exactly as they had been before. He describes the experience as the school having been “ transplanted”. There was very little mixing with local people, the school being quite self contained, for example, the college did its own catering. Food was very basic and filling, a typical staple being macaroni cheese. Tony does not recall any particular contact with the Welsh language but remembers encountering more spoken Welsh on visits to Carmarthen than in Lampeter.
The headmaster W.H. Sibley was quite a free thinker and the boys seem to have had some freedom, for example, film shows were held in the school from time to time and pupils could invite a guest. Tony has amusing memories of inviting a girl called Gwyneth to these evenings.
The way in which more regular contact did occur with others in the local area was through sporting events, especially rugby and cricket matches, when Tony’s school teams would travel to places such as Carmarthen or Brecon. He remembers rugby matches against the theology students who had had to move out of their accommodation so that Wycliffe College could take it over. Apparently the students were quite a rough bunch as rugby players, being older than the school boys, but in spite of that the young ones did achieve one or two notable victories over them. A talented school friend of Tony’s called Gilbert Parkhouse later became a well known sportsman who played cricket for Glamorgan and in seven test matches for England in the 1950s.
Tony recalls a few surprising escapades that he was involved in whilst in Lampeter - all of which were strictly against school rules. On one occasion he decided with friends to hitchhike to Tenby. They reached Tenby without a problem but on the way back they got stuck at Haverfordwest and had to start walking back to Lampeter. Fortunately before long they did manage to find another lift and arrived back in school by 6pm, just before the deadline which saved them from possibly getting expelled. Occasionally the older boys manage to sneak out to the local pub and get themselves half a pint of beer, but it was limited to one half pint!
Perhaps more extraordinary was that Tony with a small group of friends started up a strictly secret shooting club. He had brought his own shotgun from home and the boys went out to shoot rabbits. The local farmers were appreciative of their efforts, especially as they were given the rabbits to eat. A close shave occurred one day when Tony unexpectedly bumped into the headmaster just as he was crossing the quadrangle on his way to go hunting. His gun was carefully concealed under his clothes - the barrel in his trouser leg and the stock under his jacket - but he managed to continue on his way after a brief chat without arousing the headmaster’s suspicions.
Whilst in Lampeter Tony said that the boys kept up with war news over the radio but in their daily lives they felt largely undisturbed by the war. He commented that Lampeter seemed not to know there was a war on. An example of this was that items were on sale in the stores in the town that were not readily available elsewhere, such as salad cream and tinned tomato sauce. His mother would sometimes ask him to bring some items home with him which he could get in Lampeter but which she could not obtain in South Wales.
Tony left Lampeter in March 1942 and went straight into the Navy. At that time, service recruiters travelled round public schools to encourage boys to enlist. By April 1942, a month after leaving school, Tony was in the Navy - something that he had always wanted to do - and sent to a training school in Plymouth. Three months later he was on an E class destroyer called HMS Escapade beginning what was to be a long and distinguished career in the Royal Navy both during the war and for many years afterwards. Of particular note was Tony’s service on HMS Clematis, a flower class corvette on D Day and on a Landing Ship Tank in the Far East after the surrender of Germany in 1945.
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| Tony and his sister, Joan |
Blog by Frances Foley, based on telephone interviews held with Tony during February 2021
Photographs reproduced from the Freshwater East Volunteer Group News magazine, March 2021
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