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We were living in Highfields in Leicester.
I remember the soldiers came from Dunkirk and they would lie on the pavements around the school. People would go out and give them tea.
We used to talk to the soldiers.
A friend of mine married an American.
They used to bring cigarettes and groceries.

I remember when they dropped the landmine on Steel and Bus. We used to stand watching the planes.
We heard them bombing Coventry.
When there was bombing in Leicester my mother went round to the shelter in Mere Road. There was one bomb that went under a house and luckily never went off or else I wouldn't have seen my family again.

We had mostly 2 oz a week of different things, like butter.

I used to work at Corah's but was fetched out to work on electrics for the war - as part of a branch of GEC.
I worked making parts for the radio.
We had lovely times there.
We used to use the school as a shelter. We'd leave work when the sirens went off.

Before he was called up my husband Thomas Charles helped bring the bodies in.
He went to Palestine. When he wasn't well he came home on a month's leave but then had to go straight back. We wrote to each other quite a lot. We never knew what was happening - sometimes it was months before we heard anything.

We had no money or anything but we still had happier times.
During the war when the raids weren't on we could walk around during the blackouts.
We would go to dances. We would go round to friends houses and play cards and we would try and take something with us from our rations to have whilst we were there, like sandwiches.

I lived with my grandma during the war and she would have magazines, and when she said she couldn't afford it I took it on for her.

For VE Day we had a street party. We were still on rations but we gave what we could and we made little cakes and trifles and jellies for the children - we did what we could.

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Lisa Reeves of CSV Action Desk Leicester on behalf of Dorothy Mayne and has been added with her permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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