´óÏó´«Ã½

You couldn’t really go out — you never had any money. Sometimes someone would knock up a band of sorts and we’d have a make-shift dance. We made the best of it, but we never really went out. A friend of mine used to play the piano-accordion and away we’d go. But we always wore our uniform.

I used to draw the lines down the back of my legs to the heels, to make it look fully fashioned. Yes, we had to try and keep up. We weren’t supposed to wear to wear civilian clothes, and if we went out at night the more daring ones would say — now come on we’ll go to Newport where there was a dance hall. We used to go there and we’d draw down each others legs to make a fully fashioned stocking. It used to look nice though. I never dyed my legs, some did. I never liked the dyed legs.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mary Woolley and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

See also more of Mary's stories:

• 'You have to go, that's that'
• Big Cakes
• Just desserts
• 'By the left and off you go'
• 'Get off the streets'

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.