´óÏó´«Ã½

This story has been submitted to the People’s War website by Anne Wareing of the Lancs. Home Guard on behalf of Ada Croysdill and has been added to the site with her permission….

I was eight when the war broke out living with mum and dad in Oldham. I had three brothers, Wilfred, Robert and Jack and two sisters Lilian and Mary. I remember how we all would sing war-time songs together. My brother Jack had an accident at work; he fell down some stairs and ended up with one leg shorter than the other and for this reason he was unable to join up. But Robert was in the Royal Navy and Wilfred in the Lancashire Fusiliers. One time they both came home on leave together, Robert had gone out and Wilfred decided to try on his brother’s uniform, mum was looking out of the window and saw Robert coming along the road and she tried her best to get the uniform off Wilfred by trying to pull it off over his head in one go, before Robert could see him.

I went to school at St. Paul’s in Ashton, I remember the teacher’s well; there was Mrs. Hill who played the piano, Miss Newby and Mr. Frog who was tall and handsome. School dinners were brought in from outside and sometimes we took a jam jar in to have it filled with cocoa powder, sometimes we had broken biscuits, but the family were working and in spite of the rationing we didn’t go hungry.

Naturally we had to take our gas masks to school each day and one day I forgot mine and to my embarrassment was made to stand on a chair. But mum saved the day and brought it in to school for me.

My grandmother lived in Newton Heath and would come to visit us, she always wore dark clothes and carried a long bag and would give Jack, Mary, Lilian and myself a three- penny bit each.

We didn’t have a lot of money and clothes were rationed, so we mostly wore hand me downs, although each year we always had something new to wear for the Whitsun Walks at St.Paul’s Church.

I remember VE Day and the decorated streets and parties and mum making a very good parkin cake.

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