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I worked in an ammunition factory in Haswell, I was 25 at the time. I used to paint hand grenades, and our manager, Tommy Forrester, used to throw them on our range to test them. We filled them up with explosives. We were a mix of men and women, people’s faces used to go yellow from working with the ammunition. 2 men even died from it. The Doodlebugs bomb used to come over at the time. We used to watch them fly over. When the noise stopped, we knew another place had gone. Then we would hear a bang. One day, I was staying with my Brother —in-Law near the Oval Cricket Ground in a block of flats. A bomb dropped and all the glass blew out of the windows, I remember the tinkling noises. The bomb dropped on a nearby dairy and it made an awful smell. We weren’t too bothered about German planes, but the Doodlebugs were terrible. I saw an Anti-Aircraft gun we called ‘Big Lizzie’, shoot one down at Seaham Harbour. There was a big bang, and we didn’t know where it came down, there must have been a lot of damage. I met my husband in an ice-cream shop during the blackout. We walked back in the blackout and couldn’t see anything. He was working with an anti-aircraft unit.

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