大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Dunstable At War Team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

At the start of the war I was about 15 years old and working at Waterlow鈥檚. If we heard the air-raid siren go, we had to walk out of the factory and head to the brewery for safety. I remember saying, 鈥淕ood grief, we could all be mowed down crossing the High Street!鈥� Everyone laughed at that.

There were seven children in our house, plus my mother and father. Dad worked on the railway and didn鈥檛 earn a lot of money, so mother took in washing, helped to deliver other women鈥檚 children, laid out people who had passed on, in fact, she did anything to help the family budget. One day returning from work, my sister and I came into the house and found that my mother had taken in a lady and her four children (evacuees). She鈥檇 found them wandering around the town. My sister and I looked at each other; we looked at the evacuees and saw that they were in our clothes! We nearly went berserk! We then had mattresses on the floor to sleep on. That was mother! Although we had a rough time we had a wonderful mother and father.

We lived on the Northfield Estate in Dunstable and had to patrol the area in our tin hats, making sure that no lights were visible, but to be quite honest my sister and I were terrified. When our father found out that we had to take our place on the rota to patrol the estate he said, 鈥淚 can鈥檛 see what good you two are going to be. You鈥檙e walking out of here like frightened animals!鈥� But we did our duty and we had quite a few laughs one way or another.

We loved to go ballroom dancing with a group of girls. We鈥檇 go home lunchtime and put dinky curlers in our hair in readiness for the evening. We went to the town hall in Dunstable about 2 or 3 times a week. I also used to go to the Sugarloaf hotel; that was out of this world because it had long mirrors placed all around the room 鈥� I felt like a princess. Sometimes during the interval, we would club together and just about managed to buy half a shandy each at a little pub round the corner, but we were very happy in those days. We used to swap and loan clothes because they were rationed and very difficult to buy. We also used to go dancing at the George Hotel in Luton (6 miles away). Unfortunately there were no taxis and we had to walk all the way home, singing and carrying our dancing shoes. One day we were challenged by the Home Guard. We were scared to death! All of a sudden we heard. 鈥淗alt! Who goes there?鈥�

My husband joined the RAF. He served for three and a half years altogether, but he was based in Gibraltar for two of those. We got married on his embarkation leave. We had already decided to get married and had our banns called but he came home earlier than expected, which left me in a panic. With no coupons I thought that I鈥檇 have to get married in just a little dress that I already had, but his sister knew of a neighbour prepared to loan out her wedding dress. It was a bit short but quite nice. I had what you would call a utility wedding! I had three bridesmaids and it was stated in the local newspaper that I had a rainbow wedding because each bridesmaid had a different coloured dress (they were all borrowed). We had no wedding cake or honeymoon. However, I had a utility wedding ring which cost 拢1 and 10 shillings and we were happy and in love.

When my husband was in Gibraltar we used to write to each other every day. One day I told him that my younger sister had been taken to the children鈥檚 hospital. Unbeknown to me, he sent a bunch of bananas to the hospital but none of the children knew what a banana was and they had to be shown how to eat one!

When my husband went back to Gibraltar I thought that I would never see him again. I was fortunate though and when he came home, because we had no money, we lived for a time with my mother.

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