大象传媒

I was 23 in 1939, during the year I was married and with my husband went on our honeymoon abroad, which was rare at the time. We went on our honeymoon in Switzerland, at one point we wanted to go an see a church which was just over the border with Germany, the church had a swastika flag put on it and soldiers were on the border blocking any one coming in, we sensed something was happening. Three weeks after our return the war began.

I had my first child during the war in Nether Edge Hospital in Sheffield. Only two days after I gave birth the hospital was bombed, the new mothers actually benefited from this however, in those days you weren鈥檛 allowed to nurse your new born babies this was done by the nurses but because of the bombing the mothers and myself were able to look after the children, this made most of us happy and the bombing actually turned out to be in a way beneficial.

My sister was also involved in the bombings in Sheffield. She lived near what is now Ponds Forge swimming baths, which was then a rolling mill. During the war she had put her furniture into storage as we fought the house might get attacked, as it happened the factory at Ponds Forge which was near the storage was bombed and the debris from the attack smashed into the storage facility.

I remember one day when an American plane crashed into Endcliffe Park, I was talking to one of my neighbours, I remember it was raining because we had to stand on opposite sides of the road in our doorways to talk to each other, when we heard a plane that sounded like it was flying low. It sawed low above us eventually knocking into some of the chimneystacks before it crashed into the park. One of the things during the war was that you always heard lots of rumours you had take everything with a pinch of salt, one was that enemy planes followed the tram lines that ran along Collegiate Crescent, the crashing plane was the same. We heard that children were playing at the park and saw large flames from the crashed plane, but it was raining so I doubt there were kids playing at the park.

There were many sorryful moments in the war but there was little you could do and you had to except it and make do. We had to deal with rationing but you always tried to take shortcuts to get extra. When you heard rumours that a shipment of bananas had come everyone rushed to the grocers, their were always large cues but if you had a child you could go to the front, sometimes people borrowed their friends children so they could push in. You sometimes got extra things, like sugar, if you had a child and you could use this to exchange it for tea or coffee. We used to improvise with what we could get I used to use blackout materials to make aprons, the government always tried to stop you though when you were using something it wasn鈥檛 meant for.

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