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This story was submitted to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by Wymondham Learning Centre on behalf of the author who fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

I was twenty-six when World War Two started and married to an airman who joined up when the war began in 1939. I had one child who was born in 1938 and two more during the war in 1940 and 1943. There was a lot of activity over the South Downs and I remember having to grab my son when he was playing on the Downs and lie down flat in a field.

Another time, when my husband was home on leave, we saw a German plane crash down. One German was killed and was buried in the local churchyard and two were picked up. Then, we were pleased when we saw the burning aeroplanes, but now I think we were rather callous and didn’t think that there were people in them.

There was a big communal Anderson shelter and I and the other young mothers used to take the children there in their night clothes and put them to bed. An elderly grandmother would baby-sit for the neighbourhood and the mothers went along later to spend the night.

We grew our own vegetables and my husband was stationed with Canadian forces and used to bring home chocolate, cakes and rationed stuff when he came on leave, so we always had enough food.

I followed my husband to Worlingham in Suffolk and we rented a cottage. I had two sons by then and nine months later our daughter was born. At Worlingham my husband was working on decoys to confuse the Germans by lighting flares.

The blackout was very strict and I remember struggling with three little children, one in a pushchair, one on the step and one walking, to try and get to the shelter when the air-raid warden shouted at me, ‘Put out that torch!’ I felt he could have helped me and I hated him from then on.

On VE-Day we had a street party and the children all had to have home made fancy dress. My two-year-old daughter went as Cupid and one of my sons as the Shredded Wheat boy from the advertisement.

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