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Moira Wilson

I was eight years old when the war started in September 1939. In 1940, we had the Battle of Britain. My father and uncle had built an Anderson shelter in the garden and every night the whole family went down there, all seven of us, with new born baby Marilyn in a soap box. Later, my father was an air raid warden and used to go out at night. He had been turned down for active service for health reasons. Our neighbour's two children, then started coming into our shelter because their mother and father were both air raid wardens. We used to live near Northolt aerodrome and bombers used to come over every night. We were lucky, because the nearest bomb we got was 100 yards up the road.

My brothers and I missed 12 months of schooling, because the schools were being used to enlist men and so were closed to children. Factories were being turned over to making munitions and day nurseries were opened to take any children from birth to five years. In 1941, older men were being called up and so were 18 year old women. The rest of the women were expected to work in the factories and once they were there , were not allowed to leave or change jobs. Rationing was introduced early and food was short. Merchant Navy ships were being sunk and food wasn’t getting through. My mother had 9 children by the end of the war and was looked at with envy by other women when she handed over 11 ration books at the food counters.

Shops were empty and some things could not be bought like wool, except khaki and navy wool, material and some fruits. 'Make do and mend' was the answer and digging for victory was the thing in the allotments created out of parks and spaces. Children were evacuated. Whole schools went to the country. My mother asked us children whether we wanted to join the evacuees at school and when we said that we didn’t want to go, she said “ Well, we’ll all die together." Some children were being evacuated to America, and the ship was bombed and all the children were drowned.

The air raid siren went as we were about to start our 11 plus exam and so I took that in the school air raid shelter.

Children whose fathers had been killed had their names read out at schhool assemblies and then an appropriate hymn was sung.

Having passed the 11 plus, I went to a grammar school and the teachers got called up and some lessons were dropped altogether One teacher was returned to teaching from retirement — he was 84 years old.

When I was 15, we were told that to stay on at school until we were 16 years old, the school leaving age in those days, that we would have to join the lower class and do the previous work again. The shortage of teachers was so great. I left school and started work at the nearest day nursery.

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