大象传媒

This story has been added to the People鈥檚 War website by Anne Wareing of the Lancashire Home Guard on behalf of William Waterworth, the story is in his own words.

I normally walked to school with my brothers and my school friends but on this particular occasion I remember my mother was with us. When we got to the village of Roby Mill a group of ladies were stood together. One lady was crying and I asked my mother why she was crying. She told me it was because she had had a telegram telling her that her husband was missing. That was one of my first memories of the war.

I remember all the children practicing marching to the air raid shelter in the schoolyard. The shelter was dark and dank. We always sat in the same places. A few candles were lit to give some light and Miss Goulding and Miss Sims (teachers) would usually get us to sing.

Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light,
Like a little candle burning in the night,
In this world of darkness so we must shine,
You in your small corner and I in mine.

Another memory is when evacuees came to the village of Roby Mill. When they attended school I couldn鈥檛 tell what they were saying. On arriving back home I told my mother and father that there were some foreign children at school. These foreign children turned out to be evacuees from Liverpool. A very different dialect from that of the village of Roby Mill near Wigan.

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