大象传媒

I came to Keighley in 1939 and worked in the mill during the day, from 7 o鈥檆lock until 5. When we finished in the mill we went down to a fish and chip restaurant and worked in there from 7 o鈥檆lock until 12, and then from 12 till 1 or 2, depending on what day it was, we went on to the Mechanics and danced, and then we walked 3 miles home, and got up next day and did it all again. That鈥檚 what we used to do during the war.
For our entertainment when we were 14 or 15 we used to go and play on what we used to call the Mill bottom, where all t鈥檓ills were at Ingrow, and we鈥檇 play kit-kat and stuff like that. One day I was running and I fell over on my ankle, and two boys carried me to the ARP post where we were all messengers, and the fellow there took me to the hospital to get it x-rayed. We were most upset because it was half-a-crown to have an x-ray and I hadn鈥檛 got half-a-crown 鈥� I had to pay this man back at sixpence a week.
I was an ARP messenger, and this camp at the side of the swimming baths in Ilkley was for the Civil Defence 鈥� it was a weekend camp for the teenagers and we did sort of exercises. When it was the boys鈥� weekend the girls would hike over Ilkley Moor to see the boys, and then the ones that had motor-bikes, we used to come back on the back of their motor-bikes, tie their overcoats on to the pillions. Most of us just had ordinary cycles and the best turn-up at the messenger meetings was, we got half-a-crown a month for having a cycle of our own, and everybody turned up on that night.
It was safer in the blackout than it is now: we used to live right up the main Halifax road, past Ingrow, and we used to walk up, 2 and 3 o鈥檆lock in the morning after we鈥檇 been to the dance, and we never were frightened 鈥� it was pitch black and we were never frightened at all. My sister and I and one or two friends used to go up there and walk it and never bother.
I had a brother in the Navy and a brother in the Army. One was on the convoys across the Atlantic and the other ended up in Italy, went through Sicily.
I joined the WAFs in 1944, re-mustered to be a Chemical Warfare Physical Training Instructor. The chemical Warfare part 鈥� I had to go to Salisbury Plain to Larkhill Camp. It was so cold there we didn鈥檛 get undressed to go to bed, we got dressed. The wind used to blow right up through the Plain and through the hut, it never went down. Then one morning somebody suggested going down to Stonehenge, we thought 鈥済reat鈥�, and when we got there we were never so disappointed, we鈥檇 gone all through mud, and when we got there we just found it was a load of old stones, it was no better than the Cow and Calf.

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