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This story has been submitted to the People’s War website by Anne Wareing of the Lancashire Home Guard on behalf of Eileen Lias and has been added to the site with her permission…

I was at Burnley High School and we had three air raid shelters at school on each for the A,B,and C forms, but the rest of the school had to go to Thompson Park in Burnley and lie down in the grass, when the siren sounded.

There were three bombs dropped on Burnley, most likely ‘spare’ ones dropped on the way back from bombing Liverpool, maybe they could see the reflection shining from the Leeds and Liverpool Canal running through the town. It was a Sunday night and one of the bombs dropped in Thompson Park, the following day we went to have a look at the crater it had made and it was exactly where we used to lie down in the grass, thank goodness it was a Sunday, not a weekday.

At the High School we had what was called a service fund, we adopted the ship HMS Lookout, a destroyer. We sent them all the ‘goodies’ we could spare and knitted socks, mittens and balaclavas and we held concerts and charged 6 old pence admission to raise funds for them.

When I was 14 and 15 I went for two weeks camping on the land at Burcough Hall near Ormskirk. Two groups of us went and we lived in bell tents, we worked for Clucas’ Seeds, it was hard work and we took it in turns, one group staying in camp to do the cooking etc. and the other group working on the land and vica versa. This way everyone got a try at everything including cleaning the pans. I remember out of my wages after paying for my transfer and board, I came home with 34 shillings.

I was a Girl Guide by the time VE Day came and we pushed and pulled a handcart full of wood up a cart track to the top of Pendle Hill to light a bonfire, then we did it all over again for VJ Day.

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