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I got married in August 1940 to my husband (Maurice) who was stationed on the East Coast Defences as an Army Signaler attached to the Royal Artillery, whilst I looked after my mother-in-law, shortly afterwards, however, I was required to look for war work. I would have liked to have gone into the forces but Maurice was against that as he thought we wouldn’t be able to see one another. Consequently I was given a job on munitions and came to Ipswich to work at Ransome, Sims and d Jefferies where upon Maurice was transferred down to Kent. I was trained on a lathe and made Nose-Caps for Gas Bombs — never used — very meticulous work although repetitious. We worked twelve hour turn around shifts, moving and lifting the heavy steel, a job which proved exceedingly hard.
We had some good times there with workers playtime and one night an appearance by Gracie Fields, also great fun when follow worker Percy Edwards (the stage and radio performer as a mimic of Bird song and Animal Calls) would do a lion roar at 3am making everybody jump.

On a visit to see my husband I got caught up in the biggest Bombing Raid in London. The noise was unbelievable and the sights after leaving the shelter were dreadful.

One of our worst experiences was at Ipswich docks, we were running to the shelter, during a raid, and a German plane machine gunned the narrow road we were on, however he failed to see a crane and flew straight into it, killing him. At the same time the Gasometer was set on fire and we had to go under it to get into the shelter, thankfully none of us were hurt although we were all very frightened.

A lasting memory was the difficulty in which a single food ration for somebody living alone was insufficient to be able to prepare actual meals as the quantities of meat and such like were so small and, oh how I hated powdered egg.

I have many happy memories of the fun times and the many people that I met and friends I made (if I had lived in great Yarmouth for the same period this might not have been so!)
I was very lucky to have my husband return home to me safe and to give birth to our first daughter after he left to D Day and we were then altogether (in Ipswich) after his demob in February 1946, and completed our family in December 1947 with our second daughter.

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