大象传媒

Staffs County Council libraries, on behalf of the author, have submitted this story. The author fully understands the rules and regulations of the People's War website.

I was three years old when the war broke out. I lived in Chesterton. I remember going to school with my gas mask in a box and having a blue ration book. When the air raid sirens sounded, all the schoolchildren were lead crocodile fashion into the brick built communal shelter on the school playground.
Everyone had to have an identity card - even children. I remember one afternoon a bomb being dropped near to Dragon Square in Chesterton - it wiped out a whole street.
On my next journey to school, after this event, because all the shop windows had been blown out, the contents of our local sweet shop were scattered over the road. Because sweets were so scarce, we thought we were in for a treat but were warned not to touch them because they might have been contaminated.
It was rumoured that this bomb may have been meant for Shelton Steel Works or for the Etruria Gas Works.
At this time, food and clothing were all rationed. Clothes and bedding were darned and patched. I remember my mother cutting up her own petticoats to make underwear for me.
We also ate rabbit pie and rabbit stew. My mother always used to ask the butcher for a rabbit with it's head on as cats had a habit of disappearing in those days!!
I also remember there being metal 'pig bins' in every street. People were encouraged to put waste vegetable matter into these. The council then collected it all and it was made into pig swill. On VE day, all the lids off these bins disappeared because they were used as cymbals to make a racket to celebrate the victory!!

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