大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Odilia Roberts from the Derby Action Team on behalf of Ivy Ryalls and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Our family lived in Porter Road Derby when the Second World War began. We had only been in the house twelve months. It was the very first house that my engine driver dad, Jack, had been able to buy. Since moving to live in Derby in 1929 we had lived in rented property and now ten years on we were getting somewhere. I was 16 years old.

Luckily my dad had always been in work on the railway engines but the fathers of many of my school friends had not worked for a long time and they were very poor. There was no such thing as the welfare state then. No benefits, no national health service. If you needed to see a doctor or have medecine because you were ill, you had to pay for it or go without.

Families that had no money at all had to be means tested before any help was given from the authorities. When that happenned the authorities would enter the home and assess what was not necessary to survival and remove things such as the wireless, piano, any furniture that was not in daily use. They even counted how many changes of clothing people had. One of my friends told me that they even counted how many vests each child had, any more than two for each child was taken away and either sold or given to someone else.

In September 1939 I can remember Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, speaking on the wireless as I stood in our sitting room by the settee. I had my hand on the back of the settee and became conscious of the feel of the moquette under my fingers as he said 鈥淥ur country is now at war with Germany鈥� and I thought, 鈥淚 wonder if it will be over by Christmas.鈥� I was 16 years old and had been working for two years at FW Hampshires, a manufacturing chemist in Sinfin Lane, Derby. Can you remember being 16 and at work earning your own living? It was great.

It was september 1939 when war was declared but we all knew that something was going to happen in the future because we had all been fitted with gas masks before then and I have a feeling that the Anderson corregated shelter had been already delivered ready for my dad and 14 year old brother to dig a hole in our small garden and insert the shelter into it up to the level of the doorway, and then all the earth that had been dug out had to be piled on top and around the sides of the shelter for added protection. Well, it had rained during the night and when the sirens went we all ran downstairs, and outside to the shelter and slid in. My mothers aunt was staying with us for a holiday, from the Cotswolds. All the back of her nightie was plastered with wet earth and when the all clear had sounded she climbed back into bed without realising how dirty her clothes were. You can imagine the state of the bedclothes next morning. Going back to when we were still in the shelter (six of us) suddenly my mam said 'where's Iris', my 12 year old chatterbox sister. We hadn't heard a word from her so in the darkness mam called out her name and a muffled voice came back "I'm here". "What is the matter with your voice?" mother asked her. "Nothing" came the reply. "I've got my gas mask on." We all laughed and it broke the tension.

Mother and dad had put all their important papers in a Bluebird Toffee tin and this was taken into the shelter each time the sirens went. I still have that tin after all this time. As the years went by, sometimes we wouldn't bother to get out of bed and go into the shelter... we were too tired. Another thing was, it wasn't always safe to leave the house once the guns stationed in different areas were firing st the enemy planes as they flew over, because the shrapnel from the shells fell all over the place. Some of it just missed dad as he entered the house and it hit the dustpan right by his feet with a resounding rattle. I have a Bourneville Cocoa tin full of the pieces of shrapnel that dad picked up from the yard the next day. I am a hoarder.

I was 17 years old when I was first put on night firewatch at the factory. We had worked all day but had to take it in turn to go on firewatch during the night. The factory had a good sized first aid room and several fold up beds were placed along one wall. We had to sleep in these covered with a blanket until the sirens went and then it was all hands to the buckets and stirrup pumps and to our stations. One of the factory nurses would be in charge, AND THEY WERE VERY STRICT, you did exactly what you were told. On one of the nights I was on duty, the blanket on my camp bed was so short, and every time I pulled it up to my chin my feet were exposed. I got out of bed and immediately a loud voice shouted "Ivy, what are you doing out of your bed?" Startled I answered "I've only got out to tuck my feet in."

America came into the war in 1941 after Pearl Harbour was bombed and soon after the American servicemen began to arrive in England. What struck me immediately was the difference in the quality of the fabric of the American forces to our own servicemen. The American uniform was of smart, well cut, expensive material whilst our lads uniforms were made of rough, course material and no styling at all. I felt sorry for our soldiers.

Another thing that was unusual was that the white American servicemen never mixed with the black service boys. They had seperate nights out in the town. I had never seen a black person in reality until they came to Derby, of course they were on the films that we frequented in our town of Derby.

I have a 1944 diary in which I have recorded all the airmail letters I wrote to my boyfriend who was serving aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious in the Pacific. The first was written on the 8th January and the 69th on the 18th November and he arrived home from sea on the 4th December for two weeks leave. BLISS.

In 1942 I left Hampshires and went to work at International Combustion also in Sinfin Lane Derby. I was put into the training school for six weeks and came out able to read engineering drawings and had been schooled in all the skills of a fitter and shown how to work all kinds of machines, such as, drilling, lathes and so on, everything to do with the manufacture of torpedoes for our Admiralty.

During those years, the girls and women working in munitions and other trades in an effort to keep our lads supplied with the necessities of war and to keep the homes etc. running smoothly all the time, suffered heartbreak and loss when their loved ones were reported 鈥榢illed in action.鈥� We comforted one another in times of stress, a loving arm around the shoulders, a willing ear 鈥� it all helped us get along and carry on.
There were wonderful celebrations in May 1945 when the war was over in Europe. I wasn鈥檛 too happy though because I thought that, my now husband, had already set sail for a return to the Pacific and so I was a little subdued when I finally climbed into bed. But during the small hours the bedclothes were moved away and a strong warm body curled about mine. The sailing had been cancelled. Our war was over.

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