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"This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Department and Emily Saxton from Darton Community School on behalf of Yvonne Martin and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

I lived in Penistone during the war; I was 3 when it started and 8 when it ended.

We practised going into the air raid shelter at school but never went into a real one. We did here the bombs from Sheffield and heard a flying bomb.

We had an allotment so had fresh vegetables, chickens and rabbits to eat. Mum used make her own bread. We used to get Whale meat that looked like liver and Mum used to stuff a heart and cook that to eat.

We couldn’t get a lot of food and what we had was rationed through ration books, the same with clothes, you had to have clothing coupons. If you had big feet you got extra coupons for getting adult size shoes. Children got ‘wellies’ free! You got rations for sweets as well; I was 16 or 17 when sweets came off ration. If your kettle or saucepan had a hole in it they used to mend it with metal washers. We had orange juice and cod liver oil from the food office and blackcurrant juice that came in a tin. You had to have your ration book, ID card and gas masks at all times.

Someone at school got a banana and everyone stood round her to see it. She had a at morning break and a bit after dinner and ate the rest after the afternoon break.

We used to play skipping, hopscotch, leapfrog, tag, hide and seek, whip and top, marbles and cricket wood.

Mum was a housewife, but worked in a rug mill pegging rugs. Dad worked at Fox’s steel Works and came home at home time. At night we listened to the radio and played board games. We listened to Dick Barton, Special Agent on the radio at 6.45. All the lights in the streets had to be turned off during the war and were turned back on again at the end of the war. That night we went to the church in Penistone and the lights were on and people were dancing in the streets.

During the war American Servicemen came to Penistone, at Scout Dyke. At the top of Penistone they stockpiled bombs.

Dad had a rifle because he was in the Homeguard. He called people who worked the black market ‘spivs’.

I did the Headmasters gardening and he shouted at me and I slipped and fell onto some glass and badly cut my leg. I had to have it stitched.

My uncle was a fireman down in London and he got injured.

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