大象传媒

Iwas a young woman during World War II and lived in Stockport, Cheshire. I was married to a sailor who served on three ships during the war which were all torpedoed, the first one "The Couragious" was sunk in the first week of the war. I remember it was a Sunday night in September. He was awarded the DCM conduct medal and was presented with it at Buckingham Palace. I was very proud of him, but the war did affect a lot of our young men very badly and I think it took a long time to 'get over it' if ever.

During the war in Stockport we had underground shelters where we would all go with our babies in prams, and a supply of food and flasks, as we didn't know how long we would be down there. There were benches that we used to lie on but there were some special facilities for women with small babies, such as changing and
feeding rooms.

Everyone was on rations so if you had children you benefited more, but anyone on their own struggled more, but people were so friendly and helpful to each other because we had to live from day to day.

I worked at "Fairey Aviation" at this time on munitions and we used to listen to an Irishman on the radio Lord Ah Ah, he was supposed to broadcast and try to lower our morale. One particular night he did his broadcast and said that the 'girls in blue' were going to be a bomb target, this was us, this did actually happen but they missed us and hit McVities biscuit factory which was next door.

The food we had didn't have much variety it consisted mainly of dried egg or 'spam' and fruit and vegetables were very scarse. The children had a sweet ration and we had to queue to get them.

The blackouts were very difficult to get used to as we couldn't show the least bit of light, incase the bombers spotted it. If the sirens sounded we had to go to the nearest shelter immediately. All forms of transport would stop on the spot and everyone would again run for the nearest shelter. If you were on the streets when the planes came over you would just throw yourself on the ground, which was very frightening as you could hear the drone of the engines, and then the plane diving it was a very eerie feeling.

We knew that the big cities were suffering terrible losses, and times were hard, but the memories I have are of the bravery people showed, the way everyone pulled together and shared whatever they could, and times in the shelters were we would all sing together as the bombers were overhead. We used to say a lot of prayers together too, especially for the lads and their families who were involved in the fighting.

There were quite a lot of prisoners of war taken in Stockport, Germans and Italians and they worked on the surrounding farms.

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