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This story has been added to the People’s War website by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Leeds on behalf of the contributor with her permission. Mabel Duxbury was in her late teens at the beginning of the war and her memories are somewhat coloured by several specific incidents. Firstly the song, ‘We’re south of the border,’ by Vera Lynn triggers her memories of the war. As does, ‘What a difference a day makes.’ Mabel recognises that many people do not understand the meaning of this song. However, Mabel has had encounters with people from Poland who lost their home and most of their possessions in just ’24 little hours.’ She also has fond memories of the song, ‘You’re so nice to come home to,’ as she was serenaded by several scouts with this song.

During the war Mabel trained to be a teacher. The first school she worked in was Vernon Road Secondary Modern for Girls. Before the war, women were under the influence of their father until they were 21. However, when during the war, women were forced to work. Mabel sees this independence as a positive thing. Mabel was friends with several Banbow work girls, based in a factory making Lancaster bombers. She recalls them having to drink milk by the pint to neutralise the explosives. She also had friends who worked on a farm as land girls. Two girls would often take on the work that 5 men used to do. She would like to take the opportunity to comment that this began more equal pay for women, however even now they do not always get paid as high as men.

Mabel remembers vividly lots of people she met during the war. Firstly she recalls a ´óÏó´«Ã½ reporter, Godfrey Tolbot in Street Lane, sitting in a ditch reporting with a gramophone. When Mabel moved to work at Barnsley Girls High to teach domestic science, she met Maria Hautmann from Vienna. Her father was involved in some sort of political activity. Mabel’s mother always welcomed her friends into the house and found some way to account for the ration. When Mabel brought Maria home for the weekend, she opened up to her parents more than Mabel. She was in the Quaker services. She said that if you didn’t speak to the Nazis, they held your mother up against the wall, not you. If your mother’s life was at risk, you did talk. Maria also told a story of when she heard jackboots coming up the stairs in her building. She was hiding political papers and hid them on the stove in a pan, praying they would not look there. As it turned out they were going to another flat, but that was a story Mabel will never forget. Maria used to carry 3 grenades in her school brief case. She had to carry it as if there were only her school papers but this was hard as the grenades weighed so much more.

One of Mabel’s Polish friends, Natalia Baccarelli, remarked to her at Christmas 1950, ‘You’ve never heard jack boots marching down your road, if you had you would never forget it.’ Mabel never asked Natalia how she escaped from Poland, as Germany is close to Poland and at the bottom of Poland there is mountains. Natalia escaped from Poland to Greece, Mabel never found out how. Several refugees Mabel talked to said that they had to take only a pram or a cart with their most important belongings and get out within a few hours. Mabel did not know how they decided what to take.

Mabel and her mother used to knit clothes and blankets for the forces. She remembers a Maltese family that moved in next to her that had lost 4 homes in 4 days. They carried with them a knitted Red Cross. Mabel still knits for poor families in Rumania to this day. Mabel also had several friends whose husbands would wake them up as they were trying to get out of the window in the middle of the night, whilst having nightmares of being shot down in flames.

Mabel still remains in touch with the girls she taught during the war, and the people she had met who took sanctuary in Britain. Although she has some fond memories of wartime, she still has nightmares about the stories she had been told. She is also upset because we do not seem to have gotten anywhere.

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