'I was four when I arrived in Wales with my brother, I saw him chosen and leave, I was most upset'

Then a lady came up to Doreen Simson and said 'I'll take this little girl' - nothing was the same after that and it was a long time before she would see her brother again

Aged just four, Doreen Simson arrived with her brother at a train station in Wales. It would have been frightening enough being alone in a strange place, but what happened next left her, understandably, in tears.

The now 87-year-old remembered "getting to the station, getting off the train" and watching a farmer select her brother and his friend and take them elsewhere.

Ms Simson, who now lives in Crawley, Sussex, speaking ahead of the 80th anniversary of VE Day said: "I was most upset. We'd always been a very close family. My mum had told me that we had to stay together."

"Then this lady came up to me and she said, 'I'll take this little girl'. I didn't see him again the whole time we were there."

Doreen, who was evacuated from her home in White City, west London, in 1941, vividly remembers the heart-wrenching separation from her eight year old brother Dennis after being placed in different homes when they arrived in Wales. For our free daily briefing on the biggest issues facing the nation, sign up to the Wales Matters newsletter here

As the Royal Albert Hall prepares to commemorate the 75th anniversary of VE Day on May 8, Ms Simson shared her personal account of being an evacuee during World War II.

May 8, 1945, marked the day the Allies accepted Germany's surrender, ending the six-year conflict in Europe. The milestone event will be honoured on the Royal Albert Hall stage with personal accounts of the war and performances by approximately 100 musicians.

Reflecting on the evacuation process, which saw children being separated from their families and taken in by strangers, Ms Simson stated: "I don't even know if they were paid. You think today, it wouldn't be allowed for people to take children. So many were badly treated and abused."

However, Ms Simson expressed gratitude for being placed in a caring home in Borth, Ceredigion, Mid Wales, where she was welcomed by a kind-hearted woman named Mrs Sharpe, who became a "second mother" to her.

"Mrs Sharpe introduced me to the good things in life. She used to take me around the country lanes and we would look at all the wild flowers," she shared, attributing her future career as a florist to Mrs Sharpe's nurturing influence.

"I stayed there for nearly four years and I was happy," she fondly recalled.

Ms Simson, who was the youngest of five children before being evacuated, recounted her unusual return home to find a new sibling had joined the family.

"I left home as the baby of the family. When I got back there was a baby there that had taken my place! It was just very strange."

Addressing the topic of how her relatives managed the war's aftermath, she mentioned: "We didn't really talk about it that much. I mean, my dad was one of the air wardens."

The conversation rarely delved deep as she added: "We never really even discussed it. All my mum used to say was, 'Oh, you've been with that nice lady'. That was all she would ever say. I don't know why, you just had no idea."

Speaking of her brother Harry's experiences in the Royal Navy and the lack of support veterans received, Ms Simson reported: "They had no counselling. They just had to get on with it," followed by Harry's haunting revelation: "One day, he put his head under the blanket and said 'none of you have got any idea what it's like seeing your mates drown in burning oil'."

Years later, at the age of 15, Ms Simson revisited Mrs Sharpe, the woman who took her in during her evacuation, a connection that lasted a lifetime. "I went every year after that. She always wrote to me. I've still got the letters."

Reflecting on the social divide, she shared that her parents never met Mrs Sharpe, implying differing class backgrounds: "My mum and dad had never met her and I thought if I ever took them up there, they would have been uncomfortable. They were just working class whereas Mrs Sharpe was posh.

"When my own mum died, she said, you know, sorry your mum's died but I'll still be your mum number two and I can be number one now that your own mum's gone."

The next year, in 1989, Ms Simson put her feelings into words with a poignant piece titled "The Evacuee", portraying the distress of "screaming children" informed they're "going away to catch a train".

Reflecting on the inspiration for the poem, Ms Simson revealed, "I was in my shop, and it was the anniversary of when my mum had died, and I was just sitting there and I got a pen out and I wrote this poem – the only one I've ever written."

After reciting her work, Ms Simson took a moment, admitting: "It makes me quite emotional."

She explained how the act of writing captured her emotions at the time: "It was just how I was feeling that day, having lost my own mum, and I suppose all the memories came back."

Ms Simson recalled a particular memory from roughly 15 years earlier: "One year, around 15 years or so ago, I said to my sisters, I think I want to go out and see Mrs Sharpe, so the three of us went up to see her. We went down to the house, and she wasn't there. She was in hospital."

Describing their final encounter, Ms Simson said: "I went in to see her. I spoke to her, and as I left, I said, 'I do love you', which is a thing sometimes you don't say to somebody a bit posh. A couple of days later, she died."

Doreen Simson has been invited as a special guest at the Royal commemoration VE Day 80: The Party, taking place at the Royal Albert Hall on May 8. This significant event is held in honour of SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity, and is orchestrated by The Makers Of.