F is for Four Green Edge

When my mother was evacuated with her entire school from Liverpool, England to Beaumaris, Wales on September 4, 1939, she was "billeted" with an elderly woman in her home overlooking the Menai Strait. Billeted simply meant "housed" or taken in by hosts who agreed to have a child or children stay with them.

WWII had just begun and no one knew how long the children would stay. In some cases, evacuated children stayed with their hosts the entire length of the war. Some were even eventually adopted by the families that took them. For some children, it was a good experience - even a wonderful one. For others, it was not. Not all hosts were kind - many treated the children like servants and some were abusive.

My mother was fortunate - her time as an evacuee was, I think, one of the happiest of her life. Her host was named Alice Ridsdale. Miss Ridsdale was an elderly maiden lady who lived in a large, lovely home with her maid, Harriet Carter.

The house they lived in was called Four Green Edge. Here are photos I took of the home and its setting in Beaumaris, when my husband and I visited there in September of 2012.

GREEN EDGE

Green Edge is a row of townhomes facing the Menai Strait. Number 4 is the white door just right of center.

FOUR GREEN EDGE

THE VIEW ACROSS THE MENAI STRAIT

THE GRAVE OF MISS ALICE RIDSDALE AND HER SISTER EDITH