大象传媒

I was just 14 when war broke out and went to school in Wellington. We had an air raid shelter at the far side of the hockey pitch and we had weekly practises going into the shelter, we always had to carry our gas masks with us, in its cardboard box, and check that it was working properly, but never had to actually wear it.

With the girls in my form we collected small amounts of sweets in a tin so we could have them whilst in the shelter.
The girls in the sixth form having a rota for fire fighting duties at night, but living in Albrighton we were let off this.
A school being evacuated from Smethwick, but they didn鈥檛 stay very long.
Activities limited, swimming pools closed and field trips stopped.

The sound of the German planes by the drone they made. We had a larder under the stairs at home, and spent nights sleeping in the larder or under the dinning room table.

Queuing for hours for food rations and on one occasion going late to the butcher for my mother to collect the meat ration, all that was left was a pair of wood pigeons, not much to feed a family of four for a week!!
Being hungry and having a packed lunch for school which was always eaten by break time.

The black out was a problem and had to be strictly kept. One had to buy the material and make the blackouts, and we had a lot of windows at the back of the house, and the warden often told us to black the windows properly!.
Car head lights were half blacked over. There were very few cars about due to petrol rationing.
Train windows had black edgings to help with blacking the light out when the blinds on the trains were drawn.
Stained glass windows had sticky stuff across them to stop them being blown out.

The night Coventry was bombed you could see the glow in the sky.

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