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This story was submitted to the People’s War Website by a volunteer from Derby CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mrs Warwick and has been added with her permission. She fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I got married in 1940; my sister thought I was mad because of the war being on. My husband was a master baker and was the first person to bake on the front line. Normally in those days when you got married you had to leave work, but because of the war I went back to work at the railway on the refreshment trolleys. One day the sirens went, I had no idea what to do but I abandoned my trolley and took the money with me into the shelter which was apparently the right thing to do.

I got pregnant and had my baby in the Nightingale Maternity Home. We had our babies in cots beside us and our slippers at the end of the bed in case we had to get up quickly. My husband was allowed home on leave to visit me, but the Matron wouldn’t let him see me the day he left which I found very upsetting.

I had three lots of evacuees during the war and I’m still in touch with some of them in London. One of them was a 6 week old baby and he went black every time he cried, we discovered he had a hole in the heart.

Once when my husband came home on leave I kept our son up to see him. He was three at the time and when my husband kissed me he shouted out ‘Hey, you mustn’t kiss my mummy!’

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