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This story has been submitted by Alison Tebbutt, Derby CSV Action Desk, on behalf of Eileen O'Brian. The author has given her permission and understands the site's terms and conditions

I was eight when the war started and didn’t realise what it meant. We lived in a small village about five miles outside of Nottingham and we had a spare room. We had three children billeted with us from the city of Nottingham. They were three sisters, all older than me, maybe ten, eleven and twelve. They stayed for around one month and then their parents came to see them and took them home again.

Almost immediately we were issued with gas masks which we had to take everywhere with us. My mum had to buy black material to make curtains, to block out the light at night because we had an air-raid warden who came round at night and shouted ‘put that light out!’

Later on we had more evacuees from Liverpool, Birmingham and London in our village. We had the wife and three children of an Army Sergeant who was based at an army camp in Kimberley called Cloverlands Hall, which was owned by the local Brewery. Kimberley had just had a brand new secondary school, which was taken over by the Army to billet the soldiers, English and American.

My education carried on in the small primary school, but with all the extra evacuees we ended up only doing half a day each day.

When the air-raid siren sounded we went down into our party, which was under the stairs. My Mum erected two planks as beds for myself and my younger sister who was only three at the start of the war. My Mum and Dad sat on the cold steps until the all clear had sounded.

My Mum and Dad sacrificed their coupons for their egg rationing in exchange for ‘mash’ and bought one dozen of chickens, which were fed on the mash and boiled potato peelings. We never went short of vegetables as my Dad had an allotment.

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