大象传媒

Right in the middle of the war we lived right in the centre of Birmingham, ...evacuees; and we remember standing with our 'labels' on, don't we? Waiting to get on the train.
You got to take your gas mask everywhere and these unexploded bombs, we passed a lot of those. On our way to school we used to walk past craters and on your way back, it was a notice of unexploded bomb and we'd go back another way.
We used to pick the shrapnel up; yes, to play with; and find the biggest piece. That was the thing we did at school , you know, we've got the biggest piece of shrapnel on the next day...
But it was fun, you see; in a fun kind of way; we didn't know anything else, did we?

And then we were evacuees; saw our first cow. We were evacuated to Leicestershire.
Yes, we are twins.
We didn't get married.
So, so that was our war. And then, but we made some friends when we were evacuees, didn't we There's not a lot you can say about our war.
No, we didn't see our parents; though they were supposed to come to see us when the school got evacuated.
They were supposed to come and see us in the first fortnight. But the snow was very thick snow. And there were no signposts, and the coach that was bringing them from the school got lost.
We were all waiting near the village hall but nobody turned up. There were a lot of tears then.
So we didn't see them for some time. They used to come about once a month.
Well, neither of them was in munitions... wasn't in the war.... mother... was working in a grocers store in Birmingham. See, we were in Birmingham about a year before we were evacuated, and as the water supply got contaminated they had to evacuate us. We were seven,.
It was all austerity then; wasn't it, really?
Even after the war, for years afterwards; we never saw a coloured plate or anything. Never saw a frill... no...

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Wyre Forest Volunteer Bureau from a recording made by Joan & Ruth Yardley and has been added to the site with their permission.

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