大象传媒

During the war I was eleven years old when it started and I was living in Woodhouse which is in Keighley, and I was a schoolgirl.

Evacuees
I remember carrying a gas mask around and we had an evacuee who came up from London and stayed with us. I鈥檝e never heard from her since she went back. She was a cockney girl who was younger than me and we took her up onto the moors, which she thought was lovely you know. She had a sister and a brother and they were all parted because there wasn鈥檛 room for them as my mother could only take one, because I had a sister. And her sister and brother went to live somewhere else. It was quite sad really because her brother was only a right little boy and they all went to Holy Croft School.

Air Raids
I was only young and I can鈥檛 remember really, but no we weren鈥檛 scared except the first night of the war when we heard an air raid siren and that was scary. We didn鈥檛 have a cellar so my mother made us all get up and put our long black stockings on and our dressing gowns and we went over the road to the lady who had a cellar and it was cold and we all sat in this cellar, with our black stockings on. That was scary, but after a while when the air raid went we used to stay in bed because there was no bombing in Keighley. I had a little dog and I used to take him for a walk and I can remember them bombing Bradford and remember seeing all the search lights over the hill and I could hear the bombs.

Father was in the Home Guard
My father was in the Home Guard and there was a funny incident when, they decided to stop all church bells ringing during the war, we had a church near us. When they started ringing them again my dad didn鈥檛 know and they started ringing them in the night and my mother woke him up and said, 鈥淐harlie, they are invading us, the Germans are here!鈥� And my dad got up and we went out and ran down the street with his gun until he realised that it was the church bells and we laughed about it.

Everyday Life
I joined the Girls Training Corp, which was for girls and every year we used to give a concert in the Mechanics Institute. Every year there was a different theme, the Battle of Britain, battleship week, and we always had a concert that we did and we got money for the different causes. We couldn鈥檛 get sweets of course, and I remember taking a turnip with me to the pictures and chewing on it. The rations really were poor, there were no sweets or anything like that, but we always got plenty to eat. I can鈥檛 remember ever being hungry and it was healthier food. I was seventeen when the war finished and I can remember having a pen pal in America and she sent me some nylons. Well nobody had nylons, and I kept them in a bottle, a screw top jar. I had them two years and I used to put gloves on when I wore them and I only wore them on very special occasions.

School Life
I can鈥檛 really remember much about the restrictions, as I was only eleven then, and going through the war we just kind of went in with it. You didn鈥檛 really think about restrictions. We more or less just kind of did what we did. School life did change a little bit, although I can鈥檛 remember how, but it did seem to change. I would like to have gone to art school and sit for an exam but for some reason and it was all because of the war I never got chance to go.

The Blackout
The blackout was awful, it was shocking and I broke my tooth at the top of the street. I walked into a gas lamp and I thought someone had grabbed me and I had to have a false tooth fitted and I always say it was Hitler鈥檚 fault. We used to get a little jam jar and put paper all round it, or blotting paper, put a candle in the middle and used to have them on a string and take them out with us. It didn鈥檛 give out much light, but you cannot imagine what blackout was like, because there were no lights on windows and you used to have blackout curtains. I can remember going to bed once and you know in Summer when it is light and you hadn鈥檛 pulled your curtains on because you had gone to bed with light, the air raid warden came over, my dad or someone must have left the light on and they came banging on the window saying get that light out, or else they would fine you.

Family Members
My older sister had to join up either on the buses or go on the munitions. She went to Kirkstall training college and they sent her down to Swindon to work on the aircraft and she met her husband there. She was an armorer on the aeroplanes, she was only eighteen. Mother worked at the WVS and she knitted socks and socks and socks!

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