June Cowper was born into the Bowman family in 1925. She grew up in Fallowfields, Manchester, with her brother, sister, mother and father, who was a lecturer at Manchester College of Technology.
Both her brother and sister were too old to be evacuated, and she can very little of any preparation beforehand. However, she does remember being issued with a gas mask and that she went with the rest of her school, Withington Girls’ School. She also remembers how sad she felt on the morning that she was due to leave. Click on the link below to hear June talking about this:
june cowper crying before evacuation
Transcript of June’s audio clip _leaving parents in danger_
So, on 1st September 1939, June and the rest of her classmates went to the train station on London Road, and went by train to Uttoxeter, were she was given a brown carrier bag with some items like beans and milk to give to her new hosts. She believes they had been picked for her before she arrived.
June had a wonderful billet with her hosts Mr. and Mrs Lindop and their maid, Lucy. The Lindops didn’t have any children of their own, and so treated June like a daughter. She stayed with them in their country farmhouse, and although she wasn’t used to the plain house, she loved being on the farm and food was plentiful.
She wrote letters home practically every day, although she wasn’t home sick, and when the rest of the Girls’ School had returned home in the winter of 1939, she was one of a few girls who stayed on. Click on the link below to hear June speaking about how they arranged the schooling for those that stayed:
Transcript of June’s audio clip _staying on_
June finally returned home in the Easter of 1940 but came back to Uttoxeter to stay with the Lindops for every half-term and holiday. She loved farm life so much, that she later took a degree in agriculture.