My name was Shirley Moore (although it was Dale on my birth certificate). My father was Gerald Moore, mother Lesley Moore, and my half brother Peter Dale. 

I am now just over 90 and live in Somerset in the UK, but was born of English parents in Paris in January 1935. My father worked there for a subsidiary of Unilever. At sometime in 1939, my father's office moved down to Bordeaux in the hopes that the Germans would not bother to go that far. We lived in a little flat in the Rue du Lavoir, father, mother, me (5+) and my half brother Peter (7). Sadly I can't remember much except for the smell of garlic at school, a nice big park and that is it. Then on the morning of June 16th, 1940, my father's birthday, my mother told Peter and me to put as many clothes on as possible and choose one toy. I chose what looks like a teddy with a tail... because it is a cat. I have "Babby" still and it has sat on the best chair in my bedroom ever since! 

We left by train for the harbour and Peter could remember that a German plane tried to bomb us on our way. We then travelled to Falmouth on a collier which normally carried 26 crew and we were 147 (found those details in Falmouth years later).  My mother always told me that the captain offered her his cabin as she had two children. She always told me it was the most scary night of her life and that the captain's hair went white overnight.  

We left in the afternoon and reached Falmouth 24 hours later. With us on this travel was another Unilever family from Brussels, Donald and Simone Barlow and their two boys, Ronald and Roye. Once in Falmouth it was not easy to find any beds, particularly as the two men felt they had to carry on to London and check in with Unilever. The two mothers and us found a guest house in Perranporth on the north coast of Cornwall and sitting at the edge of a lovely beach. I remember it as heaven. After about a week or so my mother joined Mrs. Barlow and her children to travel by train to London (7 hours or so). Mother dropped Peter off at Exeter to be with his father's family, leaving me to have a wonderful time in the guest house well looked after by the owners and their 13 year old daughter. I remember nothing but joy and beach!

In August, my parents had me put on the train to London, alone and labled, a seven hour journey. I still have the label that was attached to me. The train guard looked after me as did the two charming ladies in my carriage. I then spent a few weeks under the Battle of Britain before going to family in The Wirral where I could see search lights over Liverpool. Very scared of the bombing and having to sit under the stairs with my grandmother and a cousin,  being read to.

In October, my father. mother and I, with the 4 Barlows, took off by ship from Glasgow to Africa for Unilever. We stayed in the then Belgian Congo for nearly 5 years.

I had no idea that you had to have a visa to leave. By the sound of it a nightmare of queuing etc. My mind is assaulted by what my father must have gone through etc.... Totally mind boggling. We are not Jewish but my step grandmother was and she managed to get out to Estoril from the bit of France that was under Pétain in 1941 I think. My grandfather was a top Parisian British lawyer and knew his way around things while doing his own snooping for the British etc.... another story there.

I obviously have a lot to thank Aristides de Sousa Mendes and I wish I had known about him sooner... Better now than not at all.  

My grandmother Winifred Moore was on a ship that left from Bayonne or Hendaye a few days after we left Bordeaux. She had been teaching in Portugal. So was brother Peter's father, Elwyn Dale on the last ship from either of those towns. He missed catching up with us which is what he had hoped to do. These two people were not known to each other. 

What a man to have been helped by... WOW.