James and Margaret Gray: How we fostered a German Refugee boy in September 1939

Transcript of part of a talk given to Leicester Quaker Meeting in 1995.

In 1939 James and Margaret Gray had two girls aged 6, Rachel, now Carmichael, and Janet aged 4 years. James was teaching at Overdale, the Churches of Christ College in Selly Oak. He was also teaching at Westhill College, where they had both trained to be youth workers.

Margaret says: ‘We would have liked a third child but could not possibly afford that really. Margaret Backhouse, the Warden of Westhill College, wanted to offer a home to a German refugee child, but she lived alone, and didn’t feel able to care for a child. So she paid for the child, and we had a little German boy of three years old to stay with us. We had no German, but we managed – one daughter said ‘Oh Peter, come runter, you’ll break your kopf!’ Peter settled in happily. He was a bright child who learnt English easily, and gradually the German words went out.

‘We soon moved into Overdale College, and our third daughter was born on Dunkirk Day, not the best time to be in labour!

‘Peter stayed with our family until his mother was able to join him in England’.

submitted by Rachel Carmichael
Leicester