Hi Mike
Further to my comment about the evacuee book, I have been in touch with the author and this is what he told me:
There are no Audoires in the book and none of the families in the book went to Sheffield, at least not initially. The most popular initial destinations were Bradford, Bolton and Wakefield but a few went to where they had relatives, mostly London, the West Country and the South Coast (in some cases out of the frying pan into the fire!). Many also moved about and some may well have ended up in Sheffield.
There were almost 5,000 evacuees and I have only the stories of about 150 of them, i.e. circa 50 families. A significant number made their own travel arrangements, a small number actually evacuating by air and on the scheduled mail boat services whereas those who went on 20/21 June went on a ‘fleet’ of available ships, mainly cargo boats, at no cost although they were limited in what they could take. My own parents booked to travel on the Southern Railway mail boat to Southampton. I still have their sailing ticket (the maritime equivalent of an airline boarding pass) and it is dated 4 July 1940 – four days after the Germans invaded and six days after the last mail boat, the Isle of Sark, sailed to Southampton.
Stewart
