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The decision made and tickets duly purchased, the Eades family (complete at last) made their way to Liverpool on August 15, 1940. Barbara wrote the following account for the Stanstead school magazine.
"Our Last Night in England"
Soon after nine o'clock I was in bed and watching, through the windows, the silvery searchlights sweep the sky. How many were there? One ... two ... four ... seven ... nine! They swept the sky above Liverpool in wide arcs, crossing each other, wandering and turning, and piercing the clouds. From time to time they would all flash onto a particular spot in the heavens, rest there a moment, and then turn away. I do not know how long it was that I watched the searchlights, but at length I got drowsy and began to think of silly things, such as lions and tigers, swastikas and submarines, and so fell asleep.
Sheila remembered the journey across the Atlantic.
The boat we came over from England on was the Duchess of Atholl, which was a large Canadian Pacific liner with four funnels already ageing rather by the time we joined it at Liverpool. It was crammed to the hulls with children of all ages and some adults. I think altogether there were about two or three thousand children on board, with insufficient space to sleep them all comfortably, and one can imagine the chaos that resulted with everyone wandering around with name labels on them. Those less fortunate than ourselves were taken off the ship at the other end and Canadians just came and chose children at random from the crowd that were gathered on the wharf. We of course were more fortunate in that we had an address to go to and some friends in Canada already.
The Duchess of Atholl left Liverpool on August 16th and reached Montreal on the 24th. Being a fast ship she sailed without a convoy, relying on her speed to avoid the German submarines which were already taking a heavy toll of shipping in the North Atlantic.
SS Duchess of Atholl
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