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This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from GMR Action Desk on behalf of Audrey Kenderdine and has been added to the site with her permission. Audrey fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

When the war started, I was eight and my brother Jim was four. We were on holiday with my mum and dad in Blackpool in September 1939. We had been to the theatre and everything was pitch black. Dad found out they had declared war and we could came home.

When we got back home, children had all been evacuated. My class had been evacuated and so my mum sent me and my brother up to Scotland in Fifeshire to stay with family. We stayed with my Auntie Wilhemeena, who we called Auntie Mean!

Jim could not go to school so was at home all day, while I went to school. We were there for four months. My mum and dad had returned to Higher Blackley. I was very homesick and wrote to my mum to tell her this. She realised this and came to take us home, though Auntie Mean didn’t tell us she was coming! When mum was on her way to collect us, her train had only just crossed the Forth bridge when a bomb hit the bridge. She took us back home.

When I went back, Victoria Avenue Blackley school was closed and none of my friends were there. I had to go down to Crab Lane village where there was a small school. I collected my homework and to it home with me to do.

My grandma lived with us. One day, my mum wasn’t feeling well. Grandma was hanging the washing out when she saw a German plane flying so low that she could see the pilot in his cockpit — even his goggles! He was looking for Bow Leigh nearby — a key target for them.

School opened up after six months. One day we were playing in the playground when another low flying German plane flew past. It shot at the playground, where we all dropped down onto the ground, as it was again looking for its target — Bowlee. Fortunately, no one was injured.

My dad had wanted to join the war effort as an air raid warden but was unable to as he had a bad knee. One day, during the Blitz in Manchester, Dad was just leaving the house when a bomb went off up the road — the force of which threw him back into the house and up the stairs.

We had a beautiful Anderson air raid shelter with bunk beds, carpet and teapots. It slept six people and was very comfortable with bedding and blankets. During the Blitz, we spend every night in there. When we went into the air raid shelter, my job was to carry a suitcase into the shelter with all the insurance documents. I was ten at this point and my brother was six. One evening, when the siren went off, we all rushed down the steps and into the shelter. It was only when we got in the shelter that we realised that no one had him with them. My dad went back into the house and found him in the kitchen with his balaclava on and he was fast asleep. Fortunately, the shelter was never hit. They came to dig up the garden to build these round air raid shelters. We also had a bed under the stairs in the house for Jim and I in case we could not get to the shelter in time.

My mum was Scotch and very frugal and always wanted us to be careful. There were no eggs, no butter and very little sugar. Mum used to divide our rations up into four Tate and Lyle syrup tins. Jim and I have to make sure that all the sugar that was in the tin had to last all week. We had to be really careful.

Dad was a printer at the Daily Mail and worked nights during the Blitz. When he went to work it was pitch black and he would have to carry a suitcase with a little light on it so that he could see. He would walk for four miles along Deansgate to King Street. After the raid, firemen washed down the road. There was lots of jewellery in the gutter but no one picked anything up. They just wanted to get home to their families.

Windows would be blacked out and taped up to block flying glass. We were told to do so by the government so that the German aircrafts wouldn’t have clear targets. We didn’t tape up our windows but had layers of curtains up.

I was the Rose Queen in 1945 after the war ended for local Methodist Church. This sort of thing started up again when the war ended. I had a long white dress and a royal blue satin train and a big bunch of red roses — red, white and blue.

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