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In September 1939, Evelyn Gillett was living in Spennymoor and married with one son. Her husband Jim was a miner but was called up and sent south.

Evelyn had to get a job, as did her sister who was sent to Coventry to work. Evelyn went to be trained to work in a tool room of a local factory. Trained at Darlington with other women, she worked on making materials for torpedoes. Evelyn enjoyed the work despite the long hours. (Her father said that the man who was training her deserved a medal as big as a frying pan for taking her on!) Training was for a few months. All trainees were women who later went to work in various factories. Evelyn went to work in Merrington Lane, Spennymoor where some of the work was engaged in making shells which were sent on to the munitions factory at Newton Aycliffe. Evelyn worked shifts of 6am — 2pm, 2pm — 10pm and 10pm — 6am, alternating weekly.

Evelyn’s husband was wounded at Dunkirk serving in the Royal Ordinance Corps but she received little information of where he was. A worrying time, but she said there was so much to do at home looking after her son and working, that people got on with their lives. Her son, Barry, was looked after by her mother whilst she was at work. She says she worked 7 days a week with no days off.

Rations to live on consisted of 2 ozs of butter, 2 ozs meat, 2ozs tea, 4ozs margarine, 2ozs bacon. To get this she had to register with a butcher. A lot of queuing was involved for fruit and other luxuries. She once stood in a queue for wallpaper for a long time and when she got it the wallpaper was ‘hideous’, but because she had stood in the queue for so long she put the wallpaper up despite it being so awful!

She had to work to survive and could have gone into services. Nothing was wasted during wartime. Evelyn put colouring on legs and drew a black ‘seam’ on to make it look like she was wearing stockings. No new shoes were available so people had to repair old ones.

Most people who could made the most of their free time. Evelyn went to dances at weekends, when they were not working. Evelyn’s local ballroom was the ‘Clarence’ which was situated close to the North Eastern pub in Spennymoor. There were Cinemas at Spennymoor Town Hall, as well as the Arcadia and Tivoli in Spennymoor. Dances were also held at the Town Hall and at the Clarence ballroom.

Evelyn recalls that many soldiers were being trained to march in streets and on one occasion a woman threw a bucket of water over an over zealous sergeant who was ‘picking’ on a young recruit!

She remembers how much people helped each other and shared things. Things were saved up to make Christmas cakes. Some items were bought on the black market, which was widespread. Many women made their own bread. She recalls that most people were healthier than nowadays, with few being overweight.

Evelyn recalls how difficult it was to travel, with the coast out of bounds because of security against invasion. When her husband, Jim, was injured in the army and she travelled down to Bath to see him it was a long, long journey due to trains being cancelled and crowded. Jim was subsequently discharged due to his injury, which he received when he was forced to dive over the side of a boat, and hit his head on a submerged object. He also fractured his 5th and 6th vertebrae.

On one occasion some incendiary bombs were dropped on Spennymoor, hitting the cricket field and Tudhoe Store. The force of the bomb blew curtains off windows. Evelyn and her family hid under the stairs during raids. Air raid warnings often went off and on one Monday they were sounded, on and off, all day. They were later told that the Germans had tried to invade the North East on that day.

On VE Day they held a party in the street at which all the children were given a special cup. Food was provided by the mothers. Much dancing and singing and everything (decorations and paper hats) were made for children by mothers. Evelyn never thought we would lose the war but at the start of the war she, like many others, thought it would only last a few weeks. By 1944 everyone was weary of the war and the dangers at night of the blackout. Jim had a small pension for his army disability but never recovered and eventually died of a heart attack.

This reminiscence was related to Ken Otter and entered onto the website by Catherine Dawson of Woodhouse Close Library.

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