大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Department on behalf of Arnold Belcher and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."
My grandmother lived at 53, Manchester Road, Thurlstone. Her son had a bakehouse (Hitchens). He was called up in to service, so my grandmother let her front room out for hospitality for troops. If there was not enough room at my grandmas house, my family would let a room out to soldier鈥檚 wives. There were a lot of Scots and Liverpudians. It led to my Grandma having a holiday in Scotland. My grandfather was a sergeant in the St. John鈥檚 Ambulance (George Hitchen)

Above the bakehouse was a room called 鈥渢op hole鈥�. Local people would come over and make camouflage there. They used nets and dried cloth which they weaved in to the nets. My job was to wind the camouflage on to reels. I was only 4 or 5 at the time.

Tanks would practice on Langsett Moor and go through Penistone. The area behind Langsett Reservoir became known as Little Congo. All the roads on the moor were lined with incendiary bombs. The reservoir was barrage ballooned across.

I can remember in 1941, the bombing of Stocksbridge Works. All the family went in to the cellar.

Because we had a shop, one of my jobs was to count all the coupons. You had to queue hours for a banana or an orange, but we did ok in the war.

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