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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bill Ross of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Doris Myczko, and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs. Myczko fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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I was married in August 1940. We had a quiet wedding and I was dressed in white. There was no honeymoon, as no-one was allowed near the coast and we had no money apart from 8 shillings (40p), so we bought some cups and saucers, and plates from the market, the wedding cake had the last icing you could get till after the war.

During December 1940, came the Sheffield Blitz and I worked at Cole Bros. Nearly all the big stores had been hit by bombs or fire, I was busy selling clothes with coupons to people who had lost everything.
In February 1942 I had my first baby a boy. That week, Singapore fell to the Japanese.
Rationing had it’s grip and a small tablet of soap had to last the nurses in hospital for a whole month, everything was at it’s lowest ebb.

In 1943 & 1944, we lived in London. Every night we had air raids and I never got time to reach the shelters. For two months, we never went to bed owing to the air raids, in 1944.

We returned to Sheffield to get some sleep.
In 1944, I said I would have a baby the day the war was over and on VE day, as Churchill was making his speech, my daughter was born. I called her Carole Victoria; she was 9lb 10oz. I was carolling victory.

I had been so ill and was in hospital one month, but I breast fed her up to 14 months.
She was beautiful. We had no money, but I had a perfect husband, a 3½ year old son and a new baby, I had everything.
During the war I had sixpence (2½p) a week to feed a diabetic husband and child, he earned £4 a week. £2.20 was rent, 12s (60p) bus fares, 7s (35p) electric bill and extras which came to £3.19.6 (3.97½p), so there was sixpence left to feed and clothe us. I went to work and never owed a penny and made things out of nothing.

Sadly, Carole’s dad died in 1948 aged 29.
Then Carole and my second husband died within seven months in 1997. He was the only dad she could remember and he worshiped her.

Pr-BR

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