大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Department on behalf of Doris I Ufton and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

1939 June, war was imminent, Mother decided to go to France to see her family. Family reunion August 1939. Tourcoing near Lille, brother came from Marseilles; sister came from Paris. All the family gathered together. Came back on 2nd September as war was declared on the 3rd. Father (47) joined ARP as a mortuary attendant, which had been his job in the First World War. I waited to join the Wrens but couldn鈥檛 because I was in a reserved occupation (teaching). I joined WVS. Mrs Walker was the president and we met there every Tuesday.

The meetings were about what was going to be done. A lot of knitting was done, socks for the Russian soldiers. Next to Kexborough School playing field was the Anti Aircraft gun and searchlight for the regular army. At weekends the regular army trained the Home Guard and the WVS had to do the cooking. We started at 5.30 am until 6.00 pm. My first session was breakfast. I cut 635 slices of bread. The next job for the WVS was meeting evacuees at Barnsley Exchange Station. The train arrived between midnight and 1.00 am, with 5-6 year olds. They were delivered to host families in large open lorries. This happened about every 3 weeks. One little boy wanted me to do playground duty every afternoon because our playground bordered Gawber Colliery and at 2.30 pm the day shift was leaving. He wanted to watch for his 鈥渦ncle鈥�. He used to say 鈥楿ncle are you going home to rock my Aunty?鈥�

The air raid shelters had been dug in the playground, a very steep slope down into them, with wooden seats at the bottom. Being the youngest member of staff I had to light two big Tilley lamps and go into the shelters first. I was very scared because the rats in there were as big as cats. We had to stay in the shelters until the all clear went. One Christmas we had just got the party ready when the siren went, so we carried the food into the shelter. We left the leftovers for the rats.

The WVS mainly did knitting when other duties had been discharged.

Saturday 9th September 1939 鈥� everything had been shut down in Barnsley, cinemas etc because the blackout curtains weren鈥檛 ready.

Generally we went on as usual in Barnsley.

The chemical works on Claycliffe Road had been built in 1912 by Germans, so bombs were directed towards it but it was not destroyed.

Sheffield was bombed heavily on a Thursday in December 1943(?) and on the following Sunday night. On that Thursday night my Aunty鈥檚 shop had a direct hit. The ARP thought that my Aunty鈥檚 Mother and Father had got out but they were found in the cellar. They were unable to get out because the shop had fallen on the cellar.

My Mother never saw any of her family again because her brother was killed in the Airforce and her elder sister was shot by the Germans.

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