大象传媒

In September 1939 the War began, my granny, Margaret Slater, was 17 and living in Preston, Lancashire. She remembers listening to Chamberlain on the radio as he declared that the country was at War with Germany. Then the air raid siren went off and everyone panicked! At the time, she had just left school and was training to be a physiotherapist in Manchester. In 1943 she qualified and started work in hospitals treating war casualties. She also went to work in hospitals where some of the patients were prisoners of war.

All her family were affected by the War. Her father was managing director of a cotton mill but had to also train men for the Home Guard. Her two brothers went to sea. One was an officer, later to become a Captain in the Merchant Navy. His ship sailed to West Africa and back, bringing food. On one of these trips his ship was torpedoed by a German submarine. He was one of few that escaped in an open-topped lifeboat. He was in the boat for 12 days with only a few ship's biscuits but he found a way to remove the salt from sea water by boiling it. He eventually landed in Durban in South Africa, only one of three to survive out of the whole crew.
Her second brother had qualified as a doctor and joined the Royal Navy as Surgeon Lieutenant. He was also on one of the landing craft on D-Day.

Things changed for everyone, rationing was introduced, petrol coupons were given out and so were ID cards and gas masks. Every night there was a blackout. My Granny says, when there was a blackout you could barely see a hand in front of your face. However for my Granny the scariest thing was not knowing when or if her brothers were coming back.

Food shortages caused by rationing led to her family growing vegetables and keeping chickens. The food at the training hospital was attrocious, Granny still remembers leading a protest against the foul-smelling fish. The trainees ate mostly Marmite sandwiches and peanut butter which had been brought over from America. When the air raid sirens sounded everyone would get out of bed, put on special suits called "zoot" suits and take a medical kit and blankets. They would walk in a crocodile through the corridors and down to the cellars.

While Granny was away, her family had some evacuees, a mother and three children, to stay. Everyone found it difficult to fit in with each other. When their dog had an unexpected litter of puppies, one of the children put them in a sack and drowned them. For my Granny's mother this was the last straw and she asked for them to be sent away.

The way my Granny found out the War was over was quite unexpected, she was on her way to work in the morning when the air raid siren sounded. When she asked a man what was going on, he replied, "The War is over!"

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