Sisters' handmade WW2 magazines tell evacuee tales

The evacuees left Portsmouth for Petworth, West Sussex, during WW2

When a big brown paper bundle appeared on a cottage museum's doorstep in December, Gordon and Debby Stevenson thought it might be an early Christmas present.

"We unravelled it and it turned out to be these funny little Petworth Star hand-drawn, hand-illustrated, magazines," said Mr Stevenson, who is a volunteer and on the board of the Petworth Cottage Museum in the West Sussex town.

The couple discovered the magazines, some written in pencil and held together by string and red thread, had been created by Polly Scadden, who was evacuated from Portsmouth with her sister Amy during World War Two.

The delicate creations are now under the care of the West Sussex Record Office in Chichester.

They were delivered by a woman from Oxford who had found them amongst her father's things, Ms Stevenson told the Secret Sussex podcast.

He had recently died.

"Because he was a furniture dealer, she thinks probably they were in a piece of furniture," Ms Stevenson added.

Debby Stevenson said she would have liked to keep the magazines, but said they were too fragile

Leafing carefully through the fragile papers of these "lovely little books", Ms Stevenson read the sisters had been evacuated to a farm.

"At first we assumed, being evacuees, that they were perhaps teenagers... but no, they were actually more sort of middle-aged ladies," she explained.

One of the pages talks about the lead-up to Christmas, explains archivist Victoria Evans, who has taken the magazines into her care at the West Sussex Record Office.

One story from the magazine reads: "It is nearing Christmas in our village and excitement is felt in every phase of our life.

"Even the stream has turned into a turbulent waterfall and adds to the stormy landscape in an ever-monotonous song.

"Everyone in our household seems to be hoarding string, paper, not a piece can be found. Parcels everywhere, they seem to be growing."

Archivist Victoria Evans has enjoyed reading the tiny books and researching the family

Ms Evans said: "I've done a bit of research into the family. We have Polly Scadden - she was usually referred to as Popsy Wopsy or Nellie - and we also had Amy Scadden her sister - she gets referred to as Auntie Amy in the books."

She said: "There's even a Christmas menu... they had ham and chicken, boiled potatoes, brussel sprouts, and then they had Christmas pudding with custard afterwards.

"Being in the countryside, I think they were very friendly with farmers and butchers, so they did have that access to a little bit more food and were able to plan for a really full Christmas."

Members of the public can see the magazines in the archives at the Record Office