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Stanley Bute
1936 - 2011

The team at St.Dennis.org.uk would like to thank Mr. Stanley Bute for this exclusive contribution.

Please note that this account is the property of Mr. Stanley Bute and must not be reproduced in any form without the consent of Mr.David Bute.

My name is Stanley Bute. I was born in the East End of London on May 9th 1936 which means that, at the time of writing this small contribution for the St Dennis web pages, I am 74+ years of age.

I was four years old when Hitler’s bombs encouraged the evacuation of vulnerable children from the docklands of East London to the safety of the Country’s rural areas. The Bute family was large (I was the youngest of seven children) and, initially, I accompanied two of my older sisters on London’s first evacuation programme when we were billeted with a family in Swindon, Wiltshire. Apparently I survived in that location for only a very short time, because the lady who had volunteered to provide me with accommodation discovered that I had a very healthy set of lungs – and I was prepared to use them to let the whole world know that I was far from happy.

I was returned to my mother in East London and a second attempt was soon made to send me to a place of safety. I was too young to remember, but subsequent photographs and video footage of waifs and strays with labels attached to their coats, and gas masks swinging from their small necks, leave very little to the imagination. I was taken to Paddington together with hundreds of other children and, for me and many others, the next stop was St Austell where we decanted and some of us boarded the bus that took us to St Dennis.

Current residents of the village are likely to have valuable historical information about the arrival of this collection of humanity. I have no recollection whatsoever. From verbal reports, I understand that a lady living in Hendra Road took me in, but I had learnt from my experience in Swindon that, if I cried long and loud enough, I would be returned to London within a very short space of time.

The lady persevered – and was no doubt extremely kind and patient. However, my wailing could be heard at all hours of the day and night so that, eventually, a neighbour (with a very big heart!) took pity on me (or did she take pity on her neighbour?!). “Stanley might settle once he starts playing with Brian…” said Emily Phillips, who lived at “Parkhead” Hendra Road together with her husband, Bert, and their son Brian, who was a little older than me. And that was how I came to live with the family that proved to be the most loving and the kindest people I have ever had the privilege of meeting. They took me in and allowed me to share their home for the next five years. Sadly, Mr and Mrs Phillips (and their daughter, Sylvia, who was born after my arrival) have now died, but Brian (and his wife, Shirley) have remained loving friends during the fifty five years from when the war ended and I had to return to East London.

What are my fondest memories of St Dennis?

Picking blackberries, sloes and ‘erts’ (wild bilberries?).
Summer walking on the Downs amongst the heather, gorse, broom and wood anemones.
Ordering a pasty from Veall's bakery shop opposite the village Post Office in Fore Street and then collecting it for lunch at school.
Saturday afternoons at the Plaza Cinema - with songs guided by the “bouncing ball” on the words! 
Sundays, worshipping at Hendra Road Wesleyan Chapel.
Christmas “stockings” shaped like pillow cases!
Mr Phillips sowing seed teddies.
”Picking sticks” in “Park”.
The annual Village Carnival and St Dennis’ Silver Band.
Picking teddies from a field - and learning that they do not grow on trees!
USA soldiers camped in their bell tents on the Downs.
The taste of my first orange (when they arrived in the village after the war).
Pumping the organ’s bellows at Chapel.

My arrival in St Dennis had been very traumatic (for me as well as my first hostess), but it was nothing compared to the return to my family in London in 1945. By then I was nine years old and I can well remember congregating at the school gates in Carne Hill with other evacuees who, generally, were older than me and appeared to be excited at the prospect of returning to their roots. Some had been visited during the war years by members of their family from East London. Perhaps my parents thought they were acting in my best interests by not keeping in touch with me. 

Despite the warmth of love showered upon me by Mr and Mrs Phillips, I was a very bewildered boy who waited for the coach that was to take me to St Austell and on to Paddington where I was met by two ladies who said they were my mother and my eldest sister.

I remember returning to a bomb-scarred street in London’s East End. A small number of gaslamps provided occasional street lighting. Most of the houses had been flattened. A number of prefabricated dwellings had been hastily erected to provide emergency accommodation. It says much for the designers of these buildings that the structures were to last many years after the war, eventually to be placed by new-build blocks of flats, or disposed of to make way for a green-belt area of open space. Even this sensible move by the Government of the day did nothing to make me feel secure. I was unable to take Sunday walks through “Park” or slide down the sand burrows of disused clay mines, or look for some trees to climb in Treviscoe Woods.

For the third time in my young life, I felt rejected and very traumatised. Mr and Mrs Phillips, Brian and Sylvia, had all welcomed me into their home as a full member of their family. The people of St Dennis had done their utmost to open arms and hearts to all of us who had arrived on their doorsteps.

Mrs Phillips had great baking ability despite the meagre war rations. Home-baked pasties, clotted cream (prepared on her small, vigorously-pumped, primus stove) as well as saffron and yeast buns were frequently on the menu. Meat was provided by Mr Yelland, the butcher. I was (quite rightly!) encouraged to eat all the food that was put before me! On reflection, the only food that I definitely did not like was turnip. Mrs Phillips found a way of convincing me that it was better to eat it than leave it on the plate! She had become my substitute mother, and I thank God for every remembrance of her as well as her (“Home Guard”) husband, and my ever-remaining ‘honorary’ brother, Brian.

Stan Bute - August 2010