A few words from Edward Gill:
"It is 79 years ago today – to the hour - since I, with my four brothers and two sisters with 50 other school children arrived at Norton in Hales as wartime evacuees from Manchester. I think I am perhaps the only person left that was in the village on that day, a day I shall never forget. My brother Albert didn’t forget it either; it was his 11th birthday. A true landmark in our lives. It could not happen today; the response of the people was magnificent. The children arrived about 4.0’clock and within a couple of hours everyone had been given homes! On the 1st September we awoke to the sound of a City at work; on the 2nd September we were awakened by the sound of clanging milk churns below our bedroom window.
Britain was truly Great; if proof were needed there it was. I wonder if I shall see the 80th anniversary next year. It should be a cause for celebration.
Notable names in the village then:
Charles Chadwick retired Headmaster of the village school and newly appointed Billeting Officer.
Miss Mycock, Headmistress of the Village School – what a challenge for her. The Rev.J.M.Cullimore, Rector and our own teachers in charge of us – Miss Jones and Miss Taylor, barely out of her twenties and just out of college, and all the villagers I could not possibly name to whom I say a big Thank You!
‘For all the saints....’