大象传媒

I was twelve when war began on 3 September 1939, but I remember so much about it. It began for me when everyone from my school, Mount Carmel RC in Salford, was evacuated to Garstang two days before on 1 September. I only spent three weeks there as my mum missed me so much; she came and brought me back to Salford, much to our priest鈥檚 chagrin!

Then the raids started. We got it bad because we lived on Ordsall Lane, only ten minutes walk from Salford Docks, a main target. Where we lived, they had built underground air raid shelters. We lived in there every night, on bunk beds. We could leave belongings in there, everyone was the salt of the earth and helped each other. My older sister was ill, so people would accommodate her so she could have the top bunk and be more comfortable.

The school formed an Air Training Corps and we were trained to help out and how to dial a telephone in the dark.

The rations were sparse but we managed by other means. We bought stuff off the black market (like tea, sugar and butter), and we sold our clothing coupons to buy other things more important to us than clothes. We gave my sister our bacon and real eggs and made do with dried egg.

I still have some of the old clothing coupons 鈥� they were blue and brown. In fact, when I married my husband in November 1950 we were still using clothing coupons, five years after the war had ended. In fact, our wedding suits were made with utility cloth, which was used in the war (it had a special mark on it).

We had ID cards also, and I still have mine.

In December 1940, our area was hit with a land mine. It hit Bigland Street, which was over the road from where we lived, but its devastation was far reaching. The roof of our house was blown off entirely, and the soot from the chimney was half way up the walls with the force of it. My mother cleaned spent hours cleaning the soot of everything so that we would have somewhere to live and eat through the day, even though we lost most of our possessions, keeping some semblance of 鈥渘ormality鈥� as a family was important to her. (My brothers went away to war, one was taken prisoner of war in Greece but thank God is still with us today, despite walking the death march and seeing comrades die).

Following the land mine, King George and Queen Elizabeth came to visit our area and they spoke to my mother and some neighbours 鈥� it appeared on the newsreel at the cinema! I often wonder if it still in an archive somewhere.

I鈥檒l never forget my mother鈥檚 face or how we felt when war was over and we saw my brothers walking back down the street 鈥� to home.

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