Horace Smith (Grandfather) – Born 18th January 1928

Horace lived in South London and was evacuated to Shiplake near Henley on Thames during the war. Many children were evacuated from London to homes in the country where it was thought they would be safer during the bombing, but many children were mistreated by the families they were sent to live with being made to work long hours, starved and often beaten. But Horace and his friend George were sent to the home of Captain Finlay who was a good man and treated them very well.

Fresh fruit and vegetables were in short supply in London, so when Horace and George saw a great big apple tree growing in a garden in the village, they went scrumping (stealing apples), they took the apples back to Captain Finlay feeling very pleased with themselves for providing some fruit for the Captain and his family. Whilst Captain Finlay could understand why the boys had stolen the apples he knew he had to teach them that it was wrong to steal. The Captain made the two boys eat all of the apples one after the other until they were both sick and they never stole anything again.

Horace kept in touch with the family when he returned to London and took his wife to have tea with Captain Finlay many years later.

Horace and George being forced to eat apples

Frances

Frank Taylor-Walker (Grandfather) – Born 21st April 1921

Frank lived in the village of Sheepwash, North of England and as he was employed in the coal mining industry he was not called up to join the forces, but he did join the Home Guard.

In the early years during drill practice the home guard had to use brooms and pitch forks as they had not been given any rifles. If any German soldiers had landed they would have been ‘swept’ and ‘forked’ into submission.

Grandmother and grandfather’s ID cards	Frank's card
Margaret's card

Margaret Taylor-Walker, nee Harrison (Grandma) – Born 23rd January 1930

Margaret also lived in the North of England in a coal-mining village called Nedderton. As Margaret’s grandfather was the mine engineer and her father the chief clerk and cashier the family lived in two houses near the mine. Coal mines were targeted by the German bombers so an air raid shelter was built near the mine for everyone to take cover in. As the shelter was quite a distance from the houses, Margaret’s mother put a large heavy table under the staircase for the children and Scottie dog, Bell, to hide under when the air raid siren sounded. But soon, long before the sirens went off, Bell the dog would run for cover under the table, alerting the family that an air raid was about to happen, giving them plenty of time to get to the air raid shelter.