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"This story was submitted to the site by the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Peoples War Team in the East Midlands with Mary Warners permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

My father was born and bred in Hilton from a large family. He married my Mother the day war broke out, 3rd September 1939 — what a start to married life. I was born in May 1940.

My father did not go to fight in the war, his job was classed as ‘work of national importance’. He worked at Hilton Gravel, a quarry that produced sand and aggregates, so vital to the war effort.

He and others had to patrol the village at night to see that everyone had their blackout curtain drawns and that no chink of light was visible from the gas mantles.

I hated the popping and hissing of the mantles and they gave out an eerie light with creepy shadows.

We lived in a little cottage adjacent to a farm. Worked by Mr and Mrs Atkins in Main Street Hilton. I enjoyed my young life there, I can remember taking a boy called Donald who wore round glasses and was an evacuee from London, to Sunday school. He resided with Mrs Atkins at the farm.

I have kept in touch with Mrs Atkins until she died in 2004, she informed me that Donald had been to visit her a few years ago.

There was an American Forces Camp in Back Land Hilton. My friend Pauline and I used to go and talk to the Americans in the cookhouse. I was only four or so but the camp was just a field away from our house. I can remember the shiny stainless steel kitchens where they prepared lovely food. One memory is of the Victoria Plums being made ready for pudding.

I also recall a little black boy being in Hilton and on asking my mother why he was so different to me, she told me that the gas oven had blown up while he was being born. I didn’t question it at the time but I think he was the product of a relationship between a local woman and a black American soldier.

My mother told me that she heard the rumbles of the Fauld explosion, this was a very large ammunition dump that exploded a few miles to the west.

We were all very lucky in Hilton and escaped without too many complications from the war.

Those years took away some of the natural growing up years that children deserve, but gave us some different memories and hopes for a better future as we have grown old.

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