大象传媒

I remember when bombs were dropped on King William Street in Ironville, the whole sky was lit up. I remember the dog fights - these were the Germans and our men trying to shoot each other down in the sky. Then the bomb dropped in the resser (reservoir). The next morning lots of villagers went up there to collect fish. The resser was emptied.

When the sirens used to go we all used to run up the bridge, like hell me Margie my mum and my dog, my dad was on nights.

We went to the colliery offices, they had an underground shelter and we all went there. I was very frightened everytime the sirens went the feeling was awful.

We used to go to the little shop and get an ounce of butter 2 links of sausages,at one of the shops you had to be 'in' to get butter or else you got margarine. We just got through, but it was very frightening. All of our windows were blacked out and somebody used to come round and say "put that light out" We used to have lamps that had to be lit.

I remember prisoners of war coming round, they used to come down King William Street just walking around, getting exercise. They were guarded though. There was a prison camp at Swanwick Hayes. They had a big ring on their backs to show they were POW's.

The film 'The One That Got Away was filmed at Codnor Park Station just down the road, he escaped from Swannick Hayes went through all the fields to the station. Mr Rearden the station master told everyone what had happened. The prisoner got to Hucknall Aerodrome and got a plane. Lilly Cousins was going to work on the same train to Langley Mill.

Everybody pulled together though. VE day we had a big bonfire on the wreck at Ironville, there was no end there, they had a piano on the street flags from the top to the bottom of the street on the lines that aunty Con who used to hand her big bloomer knickers from.

The landlord of the King William pub came out with the jug of ale to serve everyone. At Riddings the chip shop was open all night and folks got free chips.

We were singing in the street. In their own way they were happy days because nobody was better off than anyone else. There was no keeping up with the joneses. And everybody helped everyone else.

We ate a lot of dry bread and everyone did their gardens because of the 'Dig For Victory' The government encouraged people to dig their gardens and grow their own foods

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