大象传媒

I was 14 years old in the year the war began;most pupils left school at 14 at that time. The war began on September 3rd 1939 and I started my first job on September 11th 1939 one week later.
Derby Co-op had a lot of grocery branches at that time and had an office specially to deal with food rationing, which affected these branches. People had to register where they wished to purchase their allotted rations each week. I was the office junior and enjoyed my time there.
I sometimes wonder how my mother managed to feed us, my father, my mother, brother(aged 9) and me. My father was an Air Raid Warden throughout the war. These people were on duty when the sirens went off during the night and stayed on duty until the all clear sounded in the morning. Then those that had jobs went to work as usual.
Derby did not receive the onslaught of heavy bombing like Coventry or London but we had our fair share. I remember, you could tell their planes from our own by the engine sound and when a bomb started to come down, we followed the whistling sound with baited breath, wondering where it would fall.

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