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"This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Department on behalf of Hilda Hiblin and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."
Mother, Ada Button, had a business in Station Road, Wombwell. It was a confectioners and bakery. She had to stop through lack of sugar and fruit. She used to go round the shops collecting, sometimes begging, for food to feed the children at Barnsley Road School whose fathers’ were at war.

War is cruel, that is what I think. I was born in Low Valley at Hope Street. I went to Barnsley Road School at 5 years of age. Dad, Albert Button served in the First World War. There were 10 of us in the family. The children had to peg rugs. I worked for 7 years at the Primitive Methodist Holiday Home at Scarborough as a domestic servant maid. I was married to Wilfred in 1936 at the Register Office. We lived on Barnsley Road next to Pendlebury’s fish shop.

My husband worked for Savilles of Wombwell as a bricklayer. The dole was 15 shillings in them days. He went to Warrington building airfields and hangers and used to come home at weekends. No one was in the war so we didn’t get upset.

We lived next door to a special constable who went round checking blackouts and we were told off!

The baby had a cradle gas mask. We were rationed with baby food and had to get it from the clinic. My husband was allowed certain extras eggs, chocolates, cigarettes and such but otherwise there were no luxuries available. We used to go to the Co-Op butchers and grocers and Barnsley Market for Clothes. I joined a ‘club’ for a few shillings a week to get pots and pans from Scarrotts Stores. We made a lot of our own clothes and sheets etc.

I can’t remember the end of the war.

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