Maggy Read

Recollections of evacuation to Argentina.

Arriving in Buenos Aires

Maggy Read and Peter Bell talk about arriving in Buenos Aires after a three weeks at sea.

Air raids in England

Maggy Read talks about being worried for her parents safety.

Returning home

Maggy Read and Peter Bell talk about returning to England after five years in Argentina.

A different life

Maggy Read and Peter Bell talk about adjusting to life in England.

Evacuation to Argentina

In 1940, Maggy and her brother Peter were evacuated to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to stay with their uncle Rex and his wife Olga. Maggy was only six years old at the time and recalls ‘being put on a train with Peter and standing at the window and waving to them [parents and grandparents] just as if we were going for a couple of days. The significance of this event did not register at that time. The train set off leaving parents and grandparents almost certainly upset’.

Arriving in Buenos Aires

The siblings travelled on a Blue Star Luxury Liner called the Avila Star for three weeks before reaching Buenos Aires at night; ‘the lights twinkled all around – it was very pretty’. The pair were met by their uncle Rex and Olga and taken in a large car to the couple’s luxury apartment. Life in Buenos Aires was very different from life in England, with luxury and sunshine surrounding the siblings. As Maggy was only six years old when she arrived, she could not begin school until the following year when she was sent to an English boarding school, near Buenos Aires.

Although ‘it all seemed so big’, Maggy soon became accustomed to life at the school:

‘Schooldays were generally very happy and I settled in to the life in a boarding school. Routine was up at a certain time and all our night clothes had to be folded and the bed made before we went to a large hall for breakfast...Lessons were mainly English in the morning and Spanish in the afternoon. My Spanish came on in leaps and bounds and I soon spoke it more than English’.

'We had a lovely life'

The summers were spent in Uruguay, where Olga’s parents had a house near the beach. Overall, Maggy recalls, ‘we had a lovely life in Argentine, there was always something to do outdoors, climb, play games, ride horses’.

Returning home

Maggy and Peter returned to England in 1945. Maggy found it hard returning home to her family, ‘I remember standing on the deck looking down at mum and dad and I said, ‘I think that’s them down there, isn’t it?’ and you [Peter] said, ‘Yes’. And I said, ‘You go and talk to them. I don’t want to’. I was horrible. I was really horrible’.

Life in England after the war was very different from the life that the siblings had experienced in Argentina. Maggy recalls, ‘My mother said, ‘You need to wash-up. It’s your turn to wash-up’ and I went, ‘Wash-up? What does wash-up mean?’ Cos we’d had a maid, a cook and everybody did it for us, didn’t they?’