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I was born in 1927 and lived in Hitchin during the war. I was 12 when the war started.

I went to the Girls’ Grammar School and we had to take our gas masks everywhere with us. Eastbourne Grammar school pupils where evacuated to our school. The Hitchin girls attended lessons in the morning and Eastbourne in the afternoon.

In the summer we stayed at school and did holiday terms, this was to keep us off the streets. When I was at school I remember they found an unexploded bomb in the grounds of Benslow Hospital.

During the bombings in London people were bussed up to Hitchin. They slept in the Town Hall. The men slept on the stage and the women elsewhere in the hall. I remember collecting groups of small children and taking them to the rec.

Some evacuees arrived from the east end of London. The WVS tried to find places for them. Because they were ‘urchin’ types no one wanted them. You were paid 7/6d for taking in evacuees.

There was not a lot of bombing on Hitchin; a few incendiary bombs were dropped though. I remember seeing the flames from the ESA (Educational Supply Association) factory in Stevenage when that was bombed

My family tried to go on holiday once, to Worcestershire. We hired a car but didn’t know how to get there as there were no road signs. No one would give us directions in case we were spies!

I left school in 1943 and worked at the wartime nursery at York Road, Hitchin. It was open from 7a.m until 7p.m for working mums. I had a baby of two weeks to look after as its mother was working in a factory. I was paid £1 a week.

In my first year at college we spent a lot of time scraping the black off the blacked out windows. Rationing kept on until 1954.

This story is submitted by The British Schools Museum on behalf of Mrs Margaret Clarke

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