It is a bit overlooked - and perhaps a bit too comfortable for those using the grave yard as somewhere to hang out - but this bench in Frome is a reminder of time when the town was full of those fleeing war.

With Frome playing host to a number of Ukranian refugees it seems timely then to remember when the town was a safe haven for hundreds of evacuees during WW2.

The bench itself was given to the people of Frome to thank them for taking in a specific group, a whole school of children from London who moved en-mass to a set of temporary classrooms in Somerset.

During the Second World War Frome became a key destination for evacuees from the urban centres of England. The newcomers to the town included not only children but also businesses. But unusually, and as the inscription on the bench explains, the Coopers Company School evacuated as many pupils who wanted to move out.

In March 1945, in a letter to the town Mr A J White, the then headmaster wrote: " Opportunities will come when we can voice our gratitude for all that has made possible our long stay in and around Frome, but I grasp this opportunity to record here our deep appreciation for all that has been done for us as individuals and as a School. " Thus the donation of a bench came about.

Around 350 boys were evacuated from the Coopers' Company School, which had been founded in 1536.

As the school told Nub News "From 1939 until 1945 the Coopers' Company's School of Bow, London, was evacuated to Frome, and during those years many friendships were formed."

The first plans for the big evacuation were in a letter to parents dated September 26 1938. with details of how it would work and an ominous and perhaps heartless missive at the end " Particular emphasis is laid on the request that in no circumstances are parents to come to the School to see their boys off."

Perhaps that is why two hundred pupils did in fact stay with their parents, rather than move with their school, which was re-established in the recently vacated grounds of Frome Grammar School.

But others made the trip full of trepidation and some excitement, although right until the end they were not told of the exact destination or what awaited them.

Stories of the boys

One example of those who did travel, brothers John and Ronald Barrow evacuated from Stepney who arrived in September 1939. But their first billet was not a success. They wrote that an elderly couple in Berkely Road found their charges " too boisterous."

So the boys were were re-billeted with a Mrs Howlett in Milk Street, writing later that they thought she was "brilliant", how much they enjoyed bathing in the kitchen and how she made wonderful rice pudding.

Perhaps surprisingly, following the first arrivals and the setting up of temporary classrooms, at the end of term many of the pupils returned home for Christmas - and then were sent back to Frome to classrooms which consisted of seven large converted army huts, adjoining Northcote House.

The Frome School fire brigade : Thank you to the archivist of Coopers' Company's School of Bow

Operation Pied Piper

The British evacuation of children to safer places began on Friday 1 September 1939 and was called 'Operation Pied Piper'. Between 1939 - 1945 there were three major evacuations in preparation for the German Luftwaffe.

One experience shared on a history web site wrote: "I had no idea where I was going; we were just taken to Paddington station, and put on a train. At that age I should have known better, our parents did not even come with us to say their goodbyes. When we got there, it was like a cattle market, people just picked out the children which they thought looked good."

The pupils and teachers of Coopers' Company's School were evacuated, along with one and a half million others, during the first weekend of September 1939. Their destination was to have been Taunton, or perhaps somewhere in Wiltshire, but due to long-lost reasoning they ended up in Frome.

In the fascinating book by George S Perry there are first hand accounts of those who came to Frome - some much more successful than others. One wrote of the terrible food, one of the lack of electricity, another that they had been sent out to get cider with an order for fish and chips. Another boy was handed a candle told that it would have to last a week and was shown his 'bedroom' - a canvas camp bed under a table, which he described as "refined torture."

According to the book Frome at War 1939-1945 written by the local historian David Lassman, there was a financial incentive to taking in children.

Those offering lodging were given 10s 6 d a week for each unaccompanied child, 8s 6d a child if they took in more than one. Any lodging willing to take in a teacher would get five shillings. Launched in May 1938 the scheme was a success and all offers were fulfilled in just two months.

In all Frome was too in just over 3,200 evacuees, who arrived in just four days.

Away from the bombs ?

But Frome was not a completely safe billet. On Good Friday, April 11 1941 bombs fell on Nunney Road in Frome. Two ARP wardens were killed by a fleeing German bomber, while the next day, a second delayed action bomb blew up and destroyed numbers 16 and 18 in the road.

Nevertheless it WAS safer than London and so the plain inscription on the bench made the point.

" Given in gratitude to the people of Frome for generously opening their homes to the children evacuated from London during the war 1939-1940"

The cost of the bench when it was installed £ 2625, with the stone bench replacing two teak benches, the first put in the church yard in March 1951.

By 12th July 1945, more than 100 trains had brought 54,317 evacuees back home to London from all over the UK, including all the boys who had made their homes in Frome.