3 September, 1939
They think I’m sleeping but I can’t. I’m feared in this big bed all on my own. I’ve never been alone before. Never. And the wind! It has the curtains blowing all up and down like ghosts dancing. I’ll try not to look at them. But see this room, it’s so big and empty. Not empty of things. There’s loads of lovely wee ornaments that I’m sure I’m not to touch. But there’s nobody with me. Nobody at all. Oh, I want my brothers.

I’ve my torch and my diary with me but I’m still feared. I don’t see why I can’t be with John and James. We’ll take the lads, that lady said, but we’ve nae room for the lassie. Sister Margaret tried and tried, but she said nobody has room for the three of us together, and that’s why it took so long to find families to take us in. I don’t understand that. My Auntie Aggie always says, What’s one more wean? And she’s raised thirteen in a double-end, so she ought to know.

Oh, I wish my daddy was here. My daddy wouldn’t have let them separate us.

When the nuns sent the forms home for our mammies and daddies to sign so we could be evacuated, my daddy signed it, even though my mammy and me didn’t want him to. He said Glasgow won’t be safe. He said the Germans will drop bombs on the city because of all the factories and the shipbuilding. You must go to the countryside, pet, he said to me when I cried and said I didn’t want to leave. And he gave me this diary and said I’m to write in it whenever I feel lonely. Talk to me in your diary and God will carry your words to my ears, my daddy said. So no matter where you go you’ll always have your daddy, and you’ll always know who you are. Never forget that, even when you’re living with another family. Always remember who you are. I will daddy, I said. My name is Grace O’Connor. That’s who I am. My name is Grace.

They marched us from my school on Charlotte Street to the train station early this morning. It was just to be a practice for the real evacuation, but at the station they put us all on a train and next thing we knew it started moving. When I looked at Sister Margaret, I knew something was wrong. Sister Margaret is young and pretty and even though I can’t see it I just know she has curly ginger hair underneath her habit. She laughs all the time but she wasn’t laughing this morning.

Then old Sister Crabbit, which is not her real name but what we call her because she’s such a crabbit old woman, came into our car and told us that war had been declared and we wouldn’t be going home. Some of the wee ones started blubbering, and she told the older girls to take care of them. And then all of us who had brothers and sisters on the train were made to sit together. My heart broke when I saw our James, he looked that frightened. He wasn’t greeting like some of the other weans, but I could tell that he was trying hard not to. So I took him on my knee and got him to look out the window and told him a wee story. James is that thin and pale and sweet-natured. Once I heard my mammy say he’s not long for this world. I remembered that on the train today, sitting there with him on my knee, and when nobody was looking I gave him a wee kiss on the top of his head.

The nuns walked through the train, making sure we all had our gas masks and gave us each a poke filled with York chocolate and biscuits. They told us not to eat it all at once but John did, and because he did, James did too. I ate just one biscuit and twisted the top of my poke tight to save the rest.

When the train stopped at Kinross a crowd of people were waiting at the station to pick out a boy or a girl to take home with them. But nobody wanted three, so we were still waiting after a lot of our pals had all gone. The nuns found men with motorcars and began taking boys and girls in them, driving away up the roads with the motorcars full and coming back with them empty. We waited ages for our turn. James’ nose was running and he started blubbering about being hungry, so I wiped his face with my handkerchief and gave him one of my biscuits. John said I should give him one too, but he was that cheeky I said no. So he took James’, which made James cry even louder. Sister Crabbit came over and gave us a talking to. Keep that up and nobody will want you, she warned.

It was getting dark when they put the three of us into a motorcar. Sister Margaret sat up front with the driver. We went along one road and Sister Margaret got out and knocked on every door, then came back to the motorcar and shook her head and we drove on to another road. It went on like that for ages. James fell asleep with his head on my lap, and I shared the rest of my biscuits and chocolate with John. Then at one of the houses a man and woman came out and said, We’ll take the lads but we’ve nae room for the lassie. And all of a sudden my brothers were gone and it was just me left.