大象传媒

I was 12 when the war broke out in 1939. The week before we were on holiday in Scarborough. We knew war was imminent but I expect my father took us because it would probably be the last holiday we'd have for some time.

All the amusements closed down, hoteliers put blackout curtains up, the grounds of the castle wre filled with rolls of barbed wire and so was the beach. There were two young men staying at our hotel but they went home early to join up and before they went they were kind enough to give me six new tennis balls - they knew my father had just started to tech me tennis.

We came home and war was declared the week after. The very first night the sirens went. My father and I were in the sitting room but Mum had gone missing. When the all-clear went (it had been a false alarm) we went to look for her. We found her on the bottom step of the stairs wearing her gas mask.

Over the following months my father and a cousin who was a bricklayer built a brick air raid shelter in the garden with a flat concrete roof and a pipe coming out of it for ventilation.

We were lucky we didn't get many raids but we often heard the drone of German aircraft on their way to Sheffield, which they seemed to bomb nearly every night. The only time we had any bombs nearby was when they tried to bomb Staveley Works, missed and flattened Duckmanton School instead. We emerged from the shelter to find plaster brought down but no windows broken, thanks to the brown sticky tape we'd criss-crossed over them.

Rationing started and my mother must have worked miracles for I can't remember going without anything. I was going to work in Chesterfield and, although we still had normal lessons, we also had fire drill and air-raid drill, though fortunately we never had to use them.

My father was an eletrician at Ireland Colliery and when the sirens went, he'd go off to do his fire-watching duty while my mother and I went down to the shelter. When I was 16 I joined the ARP. We were issued with navy blue greatcoats, gas mask and tin hat. Our headquarters were in the clinic at Lime Avenue, Staveley.

As I was still at school, I did weekend duty and the occasional night duty. We had exercises where we had to try to get home without being captured by the enemy. We all took it very seriously but it must have looked very funny to anyone watching to see us diving into shop doorways if we spotted 'the enemy'.

Although there were hardships, we managed quite well. People were very friendly during the war as we had a common enemy and therefore no time to argue amongst ourselves. The clocks were put forward 2 hours to give the farmers more light to grow the food so, on Summer evenings it was light until about 11 o'clock at night and people sat or stood outside chattering.

It carried on like this until the end of the war when, of course, there were celebrations though these were tinged with sadness when we remembered the ones who didn't come back. I only knew two who were killed - our next door neighbour's son and an airman friend who was killed in Italy.

One thing I forgot to mention, which my Auntie reminded me of, was that I went to stay with her for a month, just for company when my uncle was serving in the RAF in Italy.

This story was told to the Staff of Chesterfield Library.

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