It is approaching 70 years since thousands of children were evacuated from London to farms and homes in the country.

MHAIRI MACFARLANE found out about the bitter sweet experiences of living away from home.

A DIET of dry bread and Oxo cubes was one of the less favourable memories of 74-year-old Thomas Horton's years as a child evacuee in St Albans during the Second World War.

Aged just four, he was the youngest boy at Coppermill Secondary School in Walthamstow to leave without his parents. But one of thousands of children to be put on a train out of London on September 1, 1939 – two days before the declaration of war.

Wearing a name tag and clutching a gas mask and a tin of spam, the boy was examined by prospective families and recalls it feeling like a “cattle market” for he and his sisters.

The grandfather said: “The first home we stayed at was horrible. I was fed on bread and Oxo. We told mum and she came and took me straight home. But every time we went home the bombs came with us. My sister and I would sit up in my room and hear, 'boom, boom, boom', getting closer and closer.”

Mr Horton was sent back to St Albans during the Blitz, but his second experience was better because of the kind Mrs Turner who, he said, was “out of this world”.

“I don't think it did me any harm,” he said. “And I really enjoyed the schools in St Albans. The teachers did everything to make you feel at home and like you belonged.

“I never got home sick because all I had ever known was living away.”

But not all evacuees' experiences were pleasant. Many were homesick and were not welcomed by their families.

Gary Heales, exhibitions and collections assistant for Vestry House Museum in Walthamstow, has been preparing an exhibition to mark the evacuation anniversary and has spoken to several former child evacuees - including his mother.

Olive Heales, 79, was also at Coppermill Secondary School when she was evacuated to St Albans, aged nine.

Mr Heales said: “My sister thought she was going to the farm for the day and couldn't understand why her mother was crying.

“The first place she went to was a large house with butlers and they thought it looked very nice. But then they were sent down to the cellar and told to live down there. They were given bread and a scraping of margarine.

“Another man told me that when his family were having eggs for breakfast they wouldn't wake him up. They would eat first, then give him bread and butter.”

He added: “A lot of people had really bad times. People tend to think they were enjoying themselves living on farms, but it wasn't good for all.”

The 1939 evacuation exhibition will be held at Vestry House Museum, in Vestry Road, Walthamstow, in September.