大象传媒

My Name is Norma Ladkin.
I was born on 10th Febuary 1934, in Gosforth, Newcastle upon tyne.
I have lived in Lichfield since 1961.
War with Germany was declared at 11am on 3rd september 1939.
I can tell you exactly what I was doing at that time. I was 5 years old, I had gone to the corner shop to buy 1p(old money) bar of cadbury's chocolate and was just coming out of the shop when the siren went, My mother who was watching me from the gate waved frantically for me to hurry up and get in doors I think she thought that the bombs would immediately start to fall.
We moved shortly after to the outskirts of Gosforth. There were fields at the bottom of our road and also two streets behind us were more fields, it was on these fields that the anti-aircraft guns were stationed, also the barrage balloons. We had a corrigated iron air-rade shelter these were called Anderson shelters put in our back garden, as did everyone else, it was cold and damp, with two metal bunks to sit or sleep on if you were in the shelter for a long time.
We did not go into the shelter. My father was very ill in bed (he died in 1941) my mother used to sit with my father during the air raides and my brother and I used to stay under the stairs, this was supposed to be the safest place in the house.
When we went to school we had to carry our gas masks with us they were in a square cardboard box. Attached to the box was a string cord so we could carry it across our shoulders.
It was a 20 minute walk to school.we came home at dinner time and back to school for the afternoon and home for tea. Always carrying our gas masks. Many times we found shrapnel lying on the roads and pavements. Which we used to pick up.
We had black-out curtains at the window, no chink of light was allowed at all. If the ARP wardens saw them or the policemen, you were heavily fined.
Search lights criss-crossed the sky in their search for German planes. This helped the soldiers fire the guns. You could always tell a German plane the sound was totally different to our planes.
No bombs fell where we lived there was no industry where we lived. The bombs fell mainly around the River Tyne, where there was engineering works and ship building. They were easy targets as the river could be seen clearly in a plane.
Some incendiary bombs were dropped in the field behind my aunts house and all the neighbours formed a chain passing pails of sand and water to squash the flames before the bombers came to drop the big bombs. Their target there was the main railway line from London to Edinburgh which passed nearby.
We had some evacuees at our school from London, not many though. Also people took in families from areas that were being badly bombed we had a little family stay with us after my father died.
We were all on rations with a ration book each. We could only have small amounts of food. Everything was in short supply and queues used to form outside shops if somethig came in, such as oranges or apples. I did not know what a banana was until I was about 10 years old. My mother had queued for a long time to get some, it was the first shipment to get through. clothes were only also supplied with clothing coupons.
Towards the end of the war, in Gosforth we had some Italian prisoners of war, they were based in huts on the fields were the anti-aircraft guns were, they were allowed to walk around Gosforth quite freely. On the back of their uniforms they had a dimond shaped patch on the side so everyone knew who they were.
In Gosforth, though times were hard we had a quiet war compared to other places.
There was of course no street lights and if you needed to use a torch it had to be very dim and held downwards.
Al the iron railings were taken down from front garedns, parks and public buildings. These were melted down and used for aircrafts and tanks.
The delivery men came round with horse drawn vehicles, very few people had petrol, that was also rationed and bought with coupons.
Everyone who could, grew their own vegtables and kept hens for the eggs. One of my aunts and uncle had shares in a pig so we had plenty of bacon at given times. I could say we were very lucky compared to some people.

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