大象传媒

In 1939 my grandma started secondary school. They had lots of practise alerts, which is when they went into underground shelters in a field behind the school. They always had to carry their gas masks with them intot eh shelters. When they were in the shelters they had to answer the register with the masks on. I asked my grandma what she thought of the masks and she said that she didnt like them because they were uncomfortable and tight around her face. In 1940 she was admitted to hospital with Meningitus, she was on a childrens ward, and as there was no antibiotics for Meningitus then, she was off school for nearly a year. At night in the childrens ward when the air raid siren went off, the beds were pushed into the middle of the ward to avoid broken glass from the windows and debry from the walls. Windows were taped up across with paper to stop them shattering, and every window had a black out blind to stop light getting through. When grandma was 15 she left school and went to work in a army record office as a filing clerk. Her job was basically to redirect mail for the soldiers when they have moved regiments. The office was part of the was office evacuated from London to Rugby. She worked there until she was 17, by at which time the war in europe had finished, but was still going on in the far east. Several of grandmas friends in her class lost older brothers in the army and navy etc. But luckily my grandma didnt lose anyone in her family. her dad, who was a postman, was called up for the Royal Air Force but before he left, he fell over and broke his ankle, so instead he went to work in an ammuntion factory. Her mother wasnt directed to work as she had to look after the children. SHe only had one sister, and she was younger so she didnt do anything. Her Aunt worked in a factory. Grandma remembers seeing Italian and German prisoners of war working on the fields. She recalss "my sisters friend married a German who she met in the fields, he was called Binder. Grandma says that most things were rationed; butter, meat, sugar, sweets, clothes eggs and tea. She wasnt bothered by the rations at all. Rugby was reasonable safe until the Coventry bombings then it got close. Grandma remebers seeing lots of Coventry people with gathered possestions, going into Rugby to find a new home. They had a few bombs dropped on the railway, and near a local air drome. When they were bombing Conventry, she had to hide (unfinished)

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