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This story has been submitted by Alison Tebbutt, Derby CSV Action Desk on behalf of Brenda Neve (nee Blyth) The author has given her permission and fully understands the site's terms and conditions

It is not difficult to look back to the life we led during the last war years.

At the time I was ten years old when it began and around sixteen when it ended. I lived in Norwich, which is surrounded by countryside and were soon set out as airfields for both the RAF and American services. All around villages and towns seem to be invaded by these high spirited yanks as they called them, stealing all the young girls. But, on the whole they were very friendly and noisy. They came with the money, cigarettes, gum, nylons, chocolate and peanut butter. They brought their music too. Back then it was the Big Band sound. They also danced the jive and the jitterbug.

It wasn’t long before the girls were under their spell. Mothers loosened their apron strings and allowed their daughters, at a very tender age, to mix with them in the dance halls and even camp dances. They hoped they would come to no harm and trusted them to toe the line. Of course, there were exceptions and those that were whisked away into the country.

One must remember that before they came into the war the country had suffered great hardship. There was a shortage of food and it was here that the women gave up such a lot for their families. Most of them worked in the shoe factories and the men over the age of eighteen were called up into the services. My father went into the Royal Engineers and eventually went over to Normandy on D-Day. We were fortunate in that he did return. We never had any assurance that he would so we were always pleased to receive his letters.

Whilst he was away we lived with our grandmother. I remember on many occasions we would look up into the sky and see the German planes going over and dropping their bombs on the Engineering works. They would bomb it night and day. At night the sky would be alive with the glare of the fires. My mum would wake me up and show me out of the window, to get dressed and zip my sister into her siren suit. She would often find I had climbed back into bed. She shouted at me, especially when I said ‘oh, leave me here’. She had to get my Gran up too, she being a large lady. There were occasions when they bombed Norwich, and one landed in the road where my gran lived. The doors were blown off and windows smashed and many of my friends had their houses completely flattened. This caused us all to sleep in the schools, some of which were made into rest centres.

I remember on one occasion cycling to school and seeing the sky full of planes pulling gliders which were obviously full of airborne troops and were going to invade Holland or Belgium. In the daytime it was the Americans who took to the skies, but at night it was the RAF. Sadly, if you had a date and your beau didn’t turn up there was the likelihood that he was ‘lost on a mission’.

On many occasions we used to sleep in the shelters and we could hear the drone of the German planes going over to bomb Coventry, but Hitler took it into his head to bomb the cathedral cities and he bombed Norwich in turn.

Although it was a very sad and traumatic time, the people were very brave and experienced a bond that was very difficult to describe. I realise that countries that were invaded suffered even more, and thank God that we are an island. Yes, we did have a hatred of the Germans but didn’t realise that one day it would change.

When I married and moved to live in London with my husband and baby son-I was twenty-one at the time- I met another lonely young mother with two little ones far from home in Hamburg. We formed a very special friendship which lasted until two years ago when she died. Hildegard came over to England having met an RAF serviceman in the mess. Likewise, Margaret, her friend did the same and they lived over here bringing up their families for fifty-five years. Their ties with their German families remain although they are firmly settled here.

On this happy note I think this is where my story can come to a conclusion.

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