大象传媒

I started interviewing Hilda At the Age Concern Clifton Day Centre building in Salford. We also asked her if she was having a good day

Q. Could you please tell me your date of birth..?
A. I was born 16th January 1925.

Q. Where were you born?
A. I was born in Salford, but more in Swinton if you know what I mean...

Q. How old was you when the war broke out..?
A. I was 14...

Q. Was you in school...?
A. No I just left school... I had to then go to work.

Q. How many people were there in your family?
A. I was an only child.

Q. Did any relations go to war eg. your father?
A. No... No one went to the war in my family. (Ayesha) You're lucky. (Hilda) it was because they were older you see. they wanted fit young men..

Q. So it was the younger ones who went to war...
A. Yes. They were conscripted you see.

Q.So during the war..Where abouts did you live.
A.No. I lived in Pendlebury during the war

Q. On the day that war broke out.. what was the main thing that you remember.
A. The main thing I remember, was it Winston Churchill, made that speech where he announced that war broke out.

Q.What year was that?
A. 1939. I think, yes it was 9th September 1939 when it broke out and the war lasted 6 years

Q.What do you remember about school? Were there any good points?
A.I liked school very much.

Q.Where did you go to work?
A.I went to work in Manchester as a machinist

Q.So did you work in a factory with lots of other young girls?
A.No. I really wanted to work in an office cos I was quite good at school but in those days you did as you were told by your parents. You couldn't just please yourself. If they said you had to go to a certain job then you did. No so nowadays is it?

Q.What did you do during the war? Did you do anything towards it?
A.Yes. I worked at Fords in Trafford Park on a big grinding machine

Q.How did you feel about the war?
A.Well it didnt really affect me, you know. I knew it was wrong but it was something you just accepted. You couldn't do anything about it really.

Q.Did you ever go out and collect shrapnel?
A.No I didn't. I remember the Christmas Blitz of 1940. I'd been with a friend to my auntie's in Pendleton and we'd had our tea there; then we went into Manchester to the cinema and when we came back later we found that it had been hit, where we lived. I think it was a land mine and two of our friends were killed.

Q.Do you remember about the rationing and the black market?
A.Yes, I do remember. Well, we had ration books and I remember we used to go near Strangeways because an Asian gentleman sold tights and different things on the black market and we used to go on Saturday afternoon to buy tights.

Q.Was there something about gravy?
A.You used to put gravy on your legs and then a line up the back.

Q.What was a typical day during the war?
A.Well. We would just go to work and come home.

Q.Was it the same routine every day?
A.More or less, yes

Q.What did you do for entertainment?
A.Well it was radio because there was no television then

Q.Did you ever go dancing?
A.Yes, we used to go to the Ritz in Manchester and the Plaza in Swinton, on Station Road there.

Q.Was it fun?
Yes

Q.Do you know anything about D Day?
A.Not really because that was more or less in France

Q.Did you have any memories of VE day?
A.Now what memories I have are more or less faded over the years because it's a long time ago, isn't it?

I got married because i met my husband at Fords where i worked. He was a fitter. and we got married when the war with france was over but the war with japan came just after we were married in 1945.

He died 18 months ago. We would have been married 60 years in June, that would have been nice.

Did you have any children?
Yes, I had five. I had four daughters, 59, 54 and i had a boy, he would have been 49 but he was premature, he only weighed 1 pound 10 oz in those days you weren't shown the babies like you are now, he lived two days and then he died and then I had twin girls they are 42. They are hard work twins.

I worked on a grinding machine. We did grinding inside - they used them in the aeroplanes. We used to work shifts, a week days and a week nights. We worked 6 days and then 6 nights.

Q.What were the hours?
A.We started at 8 o clock til 8 in the morning. That was on nights. And I always remember with my boyfriend at the time, we used to go into Manchester on a Sunday and we'd get the bus back to Eccles and then we'd walk back to Trafford Park and we always seemed to be late. It used to be about 9 when we got there and we were stopped by the men on the gate and if you were late so many times you had to go and see these ladies who were in charge.

Q.Did you ever have beatings at school?
A.No, we used to get kept behind mostly.

Q.Can you tell us about what your friends did during the war?
A.I remember one friend of mine, she went to be a land army girl and she met her husband there and then they came back to live up here. He died a few years back.

Q.So what did that involve? The land army?
A.I think they went to live somewhere in the country. I think it was down Herefordshire, that way, and did jobs there. I wanted to do that, it sounded nice, but my father wouldn't allow me.

Q.In the end did you ever get to do office work?
A.Yes I did because when I was at Christchurch School and then I went to Pendlebury High, Swinton High, well it was Cromwell Road then. We had two schools, the boys and the girls, we weren't taught together and I sat this exam in Manchester and I won a bursary to go to Christ's Commercial College in Manchester but you had to have boots and you had to pay for those. Well I got the tuition free but the exams you sat for you had to pay and my parents couldn't afford it so I didnt go. In them days the women mostly didn't work you see. It was the men that worked and the women stayed at home.

Q.Is there anything else you would like to tell us about rationing and the food?
A.I remember when we were getting married we had our reception at the Pendlebury, it was called the Butchers Arms then, we used to go in there on a Saturday and we had to save all our coupons to provide food for the reception so it was pretty hard you see

Q.How was it to arrange your wedding?
A.It was very nice but we couldn't have a honeymoon because you couldnt have the time off from war work

Q.Did you enjoy your wedding?
A.Yes, we just had the reception and then that was that. And we lived with my parents.

Q.Did any of your friends get evacuated?
A.No not where we were, no.

Q.Is there anything else you would like to tell us?
A.I remember that if there was an air raid then sirens used to go and where we lived in Pendlebury there used to be Pendlebury Town Hall but it's not there now - on Bolton Road. We had to go under the Town Hall to be safer. But what was funny was that my dad was very deaf and he would never go because there was no point because he couldn't hear the sirens

Q.Did you have your own Anderson shelter?
A.No we didn't but my auntie when we were in Pendleton, they had a brick one in the back yard, a shelter

Q.So you mentioned about one of the buildings that got destroyed..
A.Oh, a few houses, a few streets were destroyed and it was a bit of a shock because we came home late at night, we had to get the tram, it was trams then, or the train and it was rather upsetting to see what had happened. We were a bit taken aback and as I say, two of our friends were killed

Q.Was it hard for you?
A.Yes it was, yes

Thanks a lot for your time and for answering our questions.

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