AN 87-year-old man from Liverpool is searching for his friends who were evacuated to mid Wales during the Second World War.

Gerry Long was eight years old when he was evacuated to Meifod in north Powys along with eight other evacuees, including his sister, from Liverpool.

After 78 years apart, he wants to get back in touch for a reunion at the village pub that they’d called home for 18 months during the war.

On September 3 1939, the first day of the war, Gerry was sent on a train with his older sister Josephine from their home in Liverpool. When they arrived in Meifod, Leslie and Betty Roberts of the Kings Head Inn took care of them along with eight other children.

"The day the war started, we were evacuated. Because we lived by the docks in Liverpool, which was an obvious target for the Germans, there were 10 or 12 schools that had to be evacuated," Gerry recalls.

"Some went to Colwyn Bay and a lot of us went to Meifod. I think there were about 40."

Gerry is looking for George and Arthur Ridgeway from Birkenhead, Joan Cole from Liverpool and her brother John Cole, brothers Henry and Peter Johnson from Liverpool, 'Sonny' Harris from London who was a relative of the Roberts family and Margerie Keating. 

Along with his wife and family, Gerry is returning to the Kings Head in Meifod between May 15 and 17.

If you know any of the Meifod evacuees and would like to contact Gerry, please email news@countytimes.co.uk or phone 01938 557 340.