Saturday 12 March 2016

Wartime evacuees Norman and Douglas Sharp

remains of CGI Radar Station on Exminster Marshes
 Many thanks to the  website of The Exe Estaury Management Partnership
for the link to this photo

Can you help Ann Clear to discover anything more about 2 young brothers: Norman and Douglas Sharp, who were evacuated to Starcross during the war?


"
...During the Second World War my Dad and his brother were evacuated to Starcross, from Stanley Technical College in South Norwood, near Croydon, London.  I am led to believe the majority of children who attended their college (or maybe class) went to Devon with them.  My Dad stayed at Southbrook House (the very big Victorian villa near to Cockwood) and his brother stayed somewhere else in the village and they attended the village school.  I do not know how long they were there for, or the specific year (although I would think it likely to be sometime between 1939/40, but it may be later).


At some point they were moved on to a house together (address unknown) in Torquay, where they attended an unknown college that allowed them to continue there studies, which I believe was skilled tool making/draftsmanship and the like.

...
"

Here's correspondence from the Devon History Society's weblog which mentions that  South Devon Technical college in World War 2 hosted Gravesend Technical School and another London college

OLD ENQUIRIES

Jun 22, 2012. Kenneth Watkins writes:
 In 1941 and 1942 I was in Torquay, a pupil at the South Devon Technical College. The college was the host for the Gravesend Junior Technical School and a London school (I forget its name), both having been 'evacuated' from the London area endangered by enemy air raids.
Our family returned to Gravesend at the end of 1942, because of Torquay having been attacked in broad daylight that summer by four ME109s and one Fw190. We (my mother, sister and brother) were all enjoying the Tor Abbey sands that day, along with many other jolly crowds, as if there were no war! This and earlier single-aircraft raids had made my mother nervous.
(Ironically, raids resumed in the Gravesend-London area in January 1943!)
My question is - what was the date of this daylight raid, in which one bomb was dropped on the town by each of the German fighters and they machine-gunned the town during low-level flights along the water's edge right above my head?
Also, are there any newspaper or other reports available describing the several attacks on Torquay?
Kenneth Watkins, (born 17 July 1928),
2 rue de Songeons,
60220 Campeaux, France. 


I appreciate that this doesn't match your chronology, but this sounds very like an account of the notorious air raid on the afternoon of Sunday 30th May 1943 (see Casualties of the bombing of St Marychurch). During this, the beach was also machine-gunned, killing the town's Director of Education, Frank Kesteven.
 - RG

and here's a couple of links from this weblog about Southbrook House 


http://starcrosshistory.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/kellys-directory-online.html 

http://www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Grand-design-age-splendour/story-15107515-detail/story.html 

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