大象传媒

Mary gave her story during a reminiscene event at Huntingdon Library.

I lived in the centre of Birmingham in amidst the factories. The day I remember, we were all sitting around the radio and we were listening to Mr. Atlee who was prime minister than and he said WAR was declared. My Father was a builder and we had a larger house, he said "come on and fill some sandbags to put round the cellar heads outside" and he built them quite high. We had three cellars and my father made bunks across the arches. There was a lot of us, and my Mother was in the front cellar, in which my father had games and a billiard table. My Mother had her mattress on top of the billiard table. We were lucky, people had all to go out into shelters - some were made of brick and some of metal. The noise of the bombing was frightening; the planes were dropping bombs all the time. It was very frightening and houses were bombed. In the morning you saw damaged houses - all rubble. It was so bad, the young ones were sent away, wearing labels and carrying their gas masks in boxes over their shoulders and going by train. The platforms were full of children and helpers. They were going to the country - but I'm afraid it wasn't long before they came home, mothers fetched them and children wanted to go home. We had gas masks and food or clothes coupons. 2 oz of butter or marg, sugar or jam. Food was scarce. Ounce of meat or bacon. Clothes coupons did not buy much, people were making clothes from old clothes. What it was, was make do and mend and turning things inside out. I was married in 1940, my husband had just left school and was conscripted to join the army. My brother was too. They were joined in the army. They did not have a proper uniform, only the first world war uniforms. I was married on May 6th 1940, my husband wanted us to get married. I have a photo of my wedding and my husband and brother were in their World War 1 uniforms before they were taken abroad. You were either in the forces or working in the armaments in factories, or the Land Army or Nursing. My brothers were in the army, parachutists, air force or Navy.
We suffered from the bombing badly in Birmingham. Lots of Houses, my church and my school, Saint Georges were demolished. We kept ourselves going with music from the radio with songs such as:

We're going to hang out the washing on the Seigfreid line, Have you any dirty washing Mother Dear

Roll out the Barrel & We'll have a barrel of fun. We'll have the huns on the run.

There'll be blue birds over the White Cliffs of Dover, Just you wait and see. There'll be love and laughter and joy forever after.

Run rabbit run, don't give the farmer his fun. He'll get by without his rabbit pie, so run rabbit run rabbit run run run.

I had one brother captured parachuting. They also bayoneted him in the stomach. He was in Stalag prison. My other brother was captured in Tobruk.

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