大象传媒

My ninth Birthday was in the July. School was closed through August to dig the playground up to make under ground shelters. In my case this wasn鈥檛 possible as brewery vaults were under the school. Another plan was put into action whereby we, the older girls ( 9-11yrs) each had to take two younger children out of school across the road, past the shire horses down into the darkness of the brewery cellars. I wasn鈥檛 scared of that. We sang and sometimes we tried to get the children to do their times tables but that didn鈥檛 usually work. The coopers making the vats in the brewery sang with us and directed us to the cellars. Their cheery faces kept our spirits up. My identification number was OQBI/57/7. I had that number on a silver bracelet and I thought it was great but it was for identification if I was killed but I was just delighted that I could wear jewellery to school. It was difficult for a child. Queues everywhere, every Saturday for food. There were so many restrictions and nothing to buy, being told where to go. I went to the cinema when I was 5 and that was it until after the war. We were not allowed to talk to overseas servicemen.

My father had been in the first world war and his experience enabled him to build an Anderson shelter in the garden that was better than the neighbours, not too big, and he kept it dry and used car seats to make it comfortable. He threw the ARP man out (the air raid precaution man) because he was the first one in. My father stood outside during the raids. He made great big jugs of cocoa one of which he poured into my brothers Wellington boot in the dark. My father took my brother and I out of the shelter one night and pointed off in the distance and said that is a whole town on fire. We could see a red glow. That was Coventry on fire.

One egg could be bought per week for a child under 15 and mine went into the weekly cake. My aunt had superb tomatoes and she couldn鈥檛 use them all and she bartered them for other things. There was a black market which my mother detested. My parents had stocks from the first world war. My Mother had a tin of biscuits sealed through the whole war for emergencies. It lasted throughout the war and when I was 15 I asked if I could open it just to see what they were like. And they were great! My brother was 17 when he went into the Navy. He went to Japan and saw Hiroshima.

I鈥檝e made it sound fun but that鈥檚 because of the adults in my life. For the adults it was long hours and everyone had to walk or cycle everywhere. So I put it down to the adults who helped us understand. I thought the men who went to war were adults but when I look back on it now I realise that they were just teenagers, 17,18,19 years of age. But then you were an adult at 13.

I saw a prisoner of war camp at Featherstone. When I was 13 my friend and myself cycled past these bronzed gorgeous men and we waved at them and they waved back. We were moved on by our soldiers and then we realised that they were German soldiers, probably working in agriculture. But it made us realise that they were just boys like our boys.

At the end of the war schools exchanged lists. I wrote to a German boy, two Canadians and a French boy. Their tales were interesting. The Americans couldn鈥檛 believe the rationing. But the French boy鈥檚 tales were terrifying and the deprivation they experienced was unbelievable. I heard stories from people who came from Eastern Europe to work in the Midlands after the war who had walked across Europe, into France and then to the UK. They had walked with friends and relations, some of them dying on the way.

Going to the hospital accident and emergency was an experience. I had to go during VE day with a bad tooth and all around were people with fireworks burns and alcohol poisoning. But the boys didn鈥檛 all come home until 1946. But were glad to be all through it.

My husband grew up in Southampton. He saw liberated Russians who were rescued by the British., He couldn鈥檛 believe the inhumanity displayed by the Germans to these men. They were in such a state.

We didn鈥檛 learn about European Geography during the war because we didn鈥檛 know which country belonged to who. We learned about Peru and Argentina. The teachers were very good. My friends from then tell my daughter about me and I wish they wouldn鈥檛! How did we live through it? You just coped with it. You don鈥檛 waste energy.

I was a guide and I became a swallow. I did all the things the boys did. My Mother showed me how to knit socks for soldiers.

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