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The outbreak of war
Peter Bell talks about the outbreak of war.
'Sailed off to sea'
Peter Bell talks about leaving England.
Arriving in Buenos Aires
Peter Bell and Maggy Read talk about arriving in Buenos Aires.
Returning home
Peter Bell and Maggy Read talk about returning to England after five years in Argentina.
A different life
Peter Bell and Maggy Read talk about adjusting to life in England.
Whilst on holiday with his family in Devon in August 1939, the office at which Peter's father worked was evacuated from London to Weston Super Mare. The family at once relocated ‘father fetched us in a borrowed car and we went to Weston Super Mare’. The day that war broke out, Peter was roller-skating on the seafront in Weston Super Mare. He had been told to return home at 11 o’clock to hear an important speech on the radio. After hearing the Chamberlain declare war with Germany, Peter happily returned to roller-skating on the seafront. Although Peter’s parents were worried, ‘I thought the extended holiday great!’.
In 1940, it was decided that Peter, aged 9, and his sister Maggy, aged 6, were to be evacuated to Argentina to stay with their uncle Rex and his wife Olga. The journey to Argentina took three weeks. Peter recalls, ‘I remember crossing the Bay of Biscay in rough weather with nearly everyone being seasick and being in the dining saloon almost alone with Stewards serving me with lots of ice cream’.
Arriving in Buenos Aires, were met by Rex and Olga and taken in a large car to the couple’s luxury apartment. The siblings discovered a different life from what they had experienced in England. ‘We came from an ordinary suburban background in London and here we were with kind strangers driven by a chauffeur and in an apartment with living-in cook, maid and butler’.
In Argentina, Peter attended a boarding school with bought Spanish and English classes being taught. During the summer holidays, time was spent in Uruguay enjoying the adventures offered by the surroundings.
When the war was coming to an end, Peter and Maggy returned to home. It was not easy for the siblings to return to their family and austerity in England after five years in Argentina. Considering his evacuation to Argentina, Peter wonders ‘would we have been different people had we stayed [in England]? Did it change our lives – I suppose it must have for good or bad who knows’.
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