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'This story was submitted to the People's War site by Rick Allden of the CSV ´óÏó´«Ã½ Coventry and Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of Anne Bailey and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions'.

Although we had a car it spent most of the war in the garage. It had an outing occasionally such as when my father took some cadets to help with the harvest. He always had a great admiration for the Scouts who could light the fires and cook. Most useful! He would come home with farm goodies. Once the car broke down and he had to leave it, the things on the back seat. When he fetched it later, he found the police had towed it into a side road. The goodies were exposed, but there was no prosecution, as we feared. Whether Daddy gave them some of it I don’t know.
We also had food parcels from relatives in Canada, which were eagerly looked forward to.
There was some talk of sending us to Canada at one time, but a ship full of children and clearly marked was hit and sunk. Although some were saved, a friend’s only child was lost and so that idea was abandoned.
When my brother was born there was orange juice and rose hip syrup for him, which was put in his feed. I thought it looked disgusting. So did he as far as the orange juice was concerned so we had it and loved it. This was issued to keep small children healthy and full of Vitamin C.
All rationing meant to me was long queues in the holidays, shopping almost daily, for, of course, we had no fridge.
Looking back I suspect my mother went without sometimes but she never said anything.
She used to make all our clothes of course because you spent fewer coupons that way. The material didn’t use up as many as ready-mades. Besides they had more material in them. I remember she made my school gymslip and I recall comparing my full pleats with the skimpy ones my less fortunate friends had in their shop-bought ones.
With so many men at war, there was a shortage of teachers as there was of personnel in industry. There was a new High School not far from us and the headmaster called on us one day in desperation, pleading with my mother to teach at the boys’ school. She had had to give up on marrying, of course, for married women were not allowed unless they were widows. However, the situation was desperate. So she did, and kept discipline well.

This story was donated to the People’s War website by Anne Bailey, of the Leam Writers. If you would like to find out more about Leam Writers call 0845 900 5 300.

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