Pam wants to know if she was youngest girl evacuee

On 12 June 1940, Pam Bartlett was born at the Lady Ozanne Hospital [or maternity home] which was at Cordier Hill, St Peter Port.

Her parents were Charles and Elize [nee Vallois] Collins.

They told her she was evacuated when she was 10 days old and she thinks the ship might have been The Duke of York.

‘I was always told that my mother went straight from the hospital with me to the boat,’ she said. ‘My father wasn’t planning on going but when my mother started to cry he changed his mind and followed later.’

They went to Bradford, where Mrs Bartlett recalls living in Manningham Lane and spending two terms at Drummond Road School.

Her father got a job with the fire service.

She cannot remember the date they came back but thought it was on a coal boat as she and her siblings, Charles, Ruth and Christine, were covered in coal dust.

After spending their first night back at the home of a Mr Vaudin at La Saline, St Sampson’s, for whom her grandmother worked, they returned to the family home at La Chaumiere, Castel.

‘I always remember my parents and my Uncle Willie [Vallois] telling me I was the youngest girl to be evacuated,’ said Mrs Bartlett.

When planning her wedding to David in 1961, Mrs Bartlett needed a copy of her birth certificate and her father sorted it out for her.

She had a surprise when she applied to get her first passport in 1984 as, on records at The Greffe, she was listed only as ‘baby Collins’.

She had to get a letter from the priest who had baptised her Pamela Jean Collins at St Joseph’s

in 1947.

‘I was told that the nurse who brought me into the world had registered me as we had all left the island so quickly.’

Mrs Bartlett, whose husband died four years ago, has spent her life doing charity work.

She has been a member of St John since 1957 and was Bailiwick staff officer when she retired in 2007.

She set up and managed the disability shop in the Rohais before retiring in 2000.

She is a member of the St John Fellowship and founder member of the Guernsey Jumbulance charity.

For 38 years, the GJC committee has raised money to fund holidays for disabled people of all ages, alternating between trips to Lourdes one year and breaks for the less religious the next.

In 2003, she was recognised for her charitable efforts when she was made an MBE.

By coincidence, on that day at Buckingham Palace, former Bailiff Sir de Vic Carey was being knighted. He is believed to be the youngest boy to be evacuated.

. Anyone who can help Mrs Bartlett or add to her story is asked to telephone her on 247357.