大象传媒

This story was typed for Barbara by Paul Hudson of Derby Local Studies Library during a special event at Blagreaves Library on 25 April 2005.

During the war I lived in East Hull. The bombing there was terrible. In May 1941 we had had 2 bad nights of bombing in a row. The next day a rumour spread saying that a big local businessman was going to send lorries to take women and children away from Hull. So it didn鈥檛 take long for Holderness Road to be packed with people waiting for these lorries. Nothing happened, the rumour was wrong. However in the end the army came and took us to Beverley for a night, and we slept in the schoolroom. Soldiers brought us cups of thick tea and corned beef sandwiches. Next morning the soldiers took us back to the outskirts of Hull and we then walked back. We were just kids and thought it was all an adventure.

One night the local cemetery received a direct hit. The scene was terrible.

My Father was killed during an air raid whilst we were in a street shelter. We were in the rubble. Wardens went to another shelter to ask men to come out and help us, but they wouldn鈥檛 risk coming out in case they got hurt. A Sailor on leave had a kettle, all sooty, but full of water. He came over to me and my Mum to give us a drink. He said 鈥淭he bastards have just got my wife and baby.鈥� They had just been killed too.

Our school was closed for five months at one stage, but we didn鈥檛 know why. My Mum said that we had to do something to occupy our time, we were just 13 then. We decided to make lavender bags to sell to raise money for 鈥楥omforts for the Forces鈥�. Mum was the driving force behind it. We told the Hull Daily Mail about it and they pounced on us. They took us into the offices to find out what we were doing and took our photos. We told them that we had run out of silk and lavender, and once they printed this the silk and lavender poured in to us. I don鈥檛 know how much we made, but the newspaper got a letter from a soldier who said that when he had a smoke he thought of the three little maids.

At 16 I joined the WAAF. After Dad was killed my Mum, sister and me were evacuated 40 miles away. My Mum met someone and got married, but I hated him. So I decided to join up, and I wouldn鈥檛 have missed the 4 years for anything. That鈥檚 where I met my husband after he came back from a POW camp. It was fate.
I was stationed in North Wales, near Chester. Every so often there were Combined Ops dances for both men and women. Whenever these were advertised people signed up as soon as possible. I remember one time a GI got up in the interval and played Rhapsodian Blue. It was beautiful. Whenever I hear that tune I still think of him.
I remember one time we were trying to thumb a lift into Chester. We were off duty so we were in our civvies. A car stops, and we thought he said, 鈥淭axi, Girls鈥�, so we got in the car expecting him to take us to Chester. However he took us through some big gates instead. We asked him where he was taking us. He had actually said, 鈥淔actory girls?鈥� and assumed we were going back to his factory.

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