Just then, the sudden thunderous roar of a train going the other way made him jump out of his skin and pull his head back into the compartment.
‘That were a close thing,’ he said. ‘I nearly lost my head. But blast it, I’ve got a piece of soot in my eye.’
One after another, using their handkerchiefs, they all tried to remove the dirt from Titch’s eye, but to no avail. By the time they reached Blackpool’s Central Station, his eye was red, swollen and watering and he looked like Tommy Farr after his fight with Joe Louis.
Outside the station, Miss Barrymore took another roll- call to make sure no one had run away. Then she ordered her form into the coaches for final allocation to their new homes and their new parents. Before they set off, three ladies from the WVS boarded the bus bearing lots of small carrier bags.
‘We’re very sorry, boys, to hear about the air raids on Manchester,’ said the first lady.
‘We’re very sorry to see you taken from your homes like this,’ said the second. ‘But we have these little parcels of emergency rations - a tin of Spam, a tin of baked beans and a bar of chocolate - to tide you over the next few hours until billets are found for you.’
‘We’re very sorry we couldn’t do more for you,’ said the third, ‘but we wish you all the very best of luck and we hope you’ll be happy here in Blackpool.’
‘They’re very kind ladies,’ said Nobby. ‘But what does WVS stand for?’
‘Didn’t you notice,’ said Billy, ‘what each one said? WVS stands for “We’re Very Sorry”.’
‘Oh, that explains it,’ said Nobby.
The coach moved away from the station.
‘Anyone got a tin-opener?’ Billy called out.
No one had.
‘Ah well,’ he said. ‘We’ll just have to wait till we get one.’
Attention now turned to the business of finding new homes.
‘This is the part which worries me most,’ said Titch. ‘With my kind of luck, I’m bound to end up with a couple of loonies or a mad scientist or something.’
‘Stop being so cheerful,’ said Billy. ‘You might get someone really nice like Sweeney Todd or Boris Karloff.’
The bus wound its way slowly round the streets and avenues of Bispham, stopping every so often so that Miss Barrymore could match boys to billets.
The selected foster-parents waited anxiously at their doorways to see what they had let themselves in for, and what kind of kid destiny would deposit on their doorstep. Would he be thin, fat, tall, short, spotty or bespectacled? Cheeky or well-behaved?
‘You two boys, go here,’ Miss Barrymore said consulting her clipboard and choosing boys at random. ‘And you three go over there.’
Nervously, the boys remaining in the bus watched and waited their turn, wondering what kind of folk fate would ordain for them.
‘It’s like a raffle or a lottery,’ said Oscar.
‘More like a cattle market,’ said Robin.
Eventually the coach stopped outside a large, luxurious villa and an extremely ugly, cross-eyed lady wearing a pinafore and a hair-net emerged to collect her quota.
‘One only here,’ called Miss Barrymore.
Every boy tried in his own way to look invisible by avoiding eye contact: some gazed off into space, some looked at the floor, some became suddenly engrossed in the books they weren’t reading.