Doodlebugs & Bogeymen

April 3rd 1941 ‘My Day’ by Brian Milton Age 11. Today we were evacuated now we live in the country. It’s not like living in Bristol. Daddy said the countryside was full of Londoners who have been evacuated as well. But I think that must be the other countryside because we are the only people here. Today I saw a cow with its fur on. A whole cow mind, not just half of it like Mr. Herbert the butcher carries on his shoulder into the shop. This one had a head and horns and everything. Miss Taylor said that was where milk comes from. We all laughed. Everyone knows it comes from bottles. We now live with Uncle Ivor and Aunty Olive. They aren’t our real uncle and aunty. They are just pretending to be while the war is on. Tomorrow Uncle Ivor is going to show me how to kill rats.

April 3rd 1941 Jean Milton aged 14. Dear Diary. This is horrid. Today we had to leave home just because the bombs were getting worse. The first thing that happens here ‘where it's safe' is that a German plane flies over and we had to hide under the table. They don’t even have a proper shelter. We are staying on a farm which smells horrible. The family we have been billetted with smells horrible. Brian fell into a cow pat and now he smells horrible. They want us to call them Uncle and Aunty. I doubt they would like it if they knew my real uncle was in Horfield for stealing car tyres. Tomorrow we have to go to school. I expect that will smell of the country as well. I miss Mummy and I want to go home.

Brian and Jean are just two of tens of thousands evacuated from their homes during World War 2 - for some a time of happiness and discovery, for others loneliness and sorrow. A time when Firebomb Fritzes and Squander Bugs, Lord Haw Haws and Potato Petes fill childrens' heads with spitfires and shrapnel, doodlebugs and bogeymen. All set to music of the era and written from true stories, Doodlebugs and Bogeymen takes a light-hearted look at the lives of our two children and the community which received them.