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I'm a pupil from Heaton manor Comprehensive School, Newcastle Upon-tyne, entering Irene Hayes' story onto the website, and they fully understand the terms and conditions of use.

Irene Hayes was a child during WW2. she lived in the village of Newbiggin, on the North East coast of Northumberland. Her memories are vivid and colourful, here are a few.

Irene remembers the instigation of rationing to stop a "black market" emerging, where the rich would be able to buy themlves the food they needed. "there was a ration on chocolate, sugar, butter almost everything was rationed. My father was a miner, so he was not called up and we got extra rations of somethings, which came in useful.
we also kept a pig which was fattened up and slaughted and the huge gammon joints were salted and hung up in the cellar. it was quite a sight!" she recalls. These gammon joints were used for special occasions and visitors coming around to the family household.
An interesting fact that Irene told me was a special gas mask was issued for her baby brother (who had been born in 1939). "it was a huge dome sort of thing, with a completely detachable transparent hood under which the baby was placed. a pump was on one end which the mother had to pump to give the baby a supply of air".
the family were also issued with a huge metal table, which they used as a normal kitchen table. but it had folding sides which could be brought down in case of an air raid, the table would protect the people hiding underneath from rubble and flying debris. the one flaw i see with this shelter is that once the air raid is over, you are stuck underneath an pile of rubble in a metal box! but thankfully Irene never had to use this apparatus.
there was a POW camp quite near to where Irene lived, an old castle was used as the camp which was barely 500 metres from the village. Although she never came into direct contact with any prisoners Irene rememebers hearing stories that they were quite happy to be there, glad to be out of the fighting.

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