MY RETURN TO BYDOWN from Barnstaple Railway Station, from where I was to journey to join the army, was greeted with exhilaration, though I felt it to be something of an anti-climax. Here was the much praised "hero", given a tearful farewell, waved off to a just was and several hours later, he is back without even a scratch to show! It was like having been eulogised while still alive. But it was nice to feel in what esteem you were held and to hear what a contribution you had make to their lives at the training farm.
The young male inmates, who had been interred by the police for screening when I first arrived, were beginning to return from the Isle of Man, the main site of the camps. The more adult counsellors too were returning and resuming their erstwhile position.
At about this time, the end of 1940, the Blitz was devastating London and the cities of Britain. My mother had been hurt in an air-raid while seeking shelter and she came to stay with one of the farmers I had befriended in my area. Both my sisters were away from home: the eldest, Mary, married to a soldier and staying nearby his unit in Scotland; while Lottie was conscripted in to the Land Army (an agricultural reserve of uniformed women set up to replace the farmers and farm workers who were in the forces). My brother Phil, our youngest, had been evacuated with his school.