大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War Website by GMR Action Desk on behalf of May Lloyd and has been added to the site with her permission.
I was living in Abbey Crescent, Heywood, Lancashire and was about twelve when war broke out. One of the neighbours used to organise concerts for the Spitfire Fund { raising money to provide planes } There was a target displayed out side St Luke鈥檚 Church Heywood and this showed a representation of a Spitfire pointing towards the amount of money raised. I remember singing a song about a sailor, a soldier and a marine. I wanted to sing about the marine because my brother was one. The concerts were held in the Spiritualist church on Queen鈥檚 Park Road Heywood. They wanted to raise money for Spitfires because we were in a bad way then : we were losing.
I used to sit at my bedroom window and watch the flares coming down over Manchester.
We joined the A.T.C. and had uniforms. W e met once a week at St Luke鈥檚 schoolroom and would go on parade but I didn鈥檛 know what we were training for. I think it was to discipline us and to make us helpful on the streets.
When it was my week鈥檚 holiday from work I used to go on the farms down south to work but I am not sure exactly where. The trains taking us were packed with soldiers and sailors. We could never have afforded to go on holiday then so we really enjoyed the trip and although the work was hard we were really well fed. At night we could go to the local pub and enjoy a sing-song so it was something different , like a holiday.

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