大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by Wymondham Learning Centre on behalf of the author who fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

I was eleven when World War Two began and was the youngest in a large family. I had two brothers and four sisters. My mother was forty-five when I was born and she never really recovered from my birth. I had to help a lot around the house and with the cooking. I think I must have been quite clever as the year the war started I got a scholarship to the Grammar School in Dereham, but my father refused to let me go there because of the bombs. He was afraid the trains would be hit.

So, I stayed at Barnham Broom School until I was fourteen. I left on a Friday and on the Monday I started to work in a teashop, the Mary Elizabeth Tearoom, in the nearby town of Wymondham. I got nine shillings a week and stayed there a year until I got the sack as a friend of the owner wanted the job. Then I went as a general help to a family who lived in a house called 鈥楾he Orchard鈥� in Norwich Road, Wymondham. I had to do housework and cooking and also look after the children. They had a Morrison shelter in the house, like a heavy iron table, I hated going in there as they let their very smelly dog sleep in there all the time.

There were Canadian soldiers at Kimberley Hall and later on German and Italian prisoners of war. They were a nuisance and kept asking, 鈥淵ou want a bambino?鈥�
鈥淣o way鈥� said I.

My biggest memory was when a landmine fell in the field opposite and my bedroom ceiling fell down on my bed, luckily only the plaster.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.