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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Sarah Housden of Norfolk Adult Education’s reminiscence team on behalf of Joy Wilby and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

In September 1939 I was in the Commercial Sixth Form at the Blyth School in Norwich. At first the sirens were continuously going as the government didn’t really know whether we were going to have air raids or not. At the school, there were only enough shelters dug for the fifth and sixth formers, so we attended daily while the younger pupils only came in once a week.

I left school in 1940 and went to work at the City Hall. There they had strengthened, and put up sandbags in the basement, and we used that as a shelter if there was an air raid.

Because of the Black Out there was no social life because it was difficult to go out in the dark, and at the start of the war large gatherings were banned – so there were no dances or cinemas for a while. They modified these rules due to lack of air raids.

People got slack and didn’t go down the shelters when there was a warning – there had been so many false alarms. This was one reason for the heavy casualties when Norwich was bombed in April 1942. After the first heavy raid on Norwich, I remember walking through the streets of Norwich on my way to work the next morning. Curls Department Store had been completely destroyed and there were fire engines and water hoses everywhere. We had to be careful where we walked because there had been so many fires.

The present Marks and Spencer’s store was a NAAFI Club, and I used to help there one or two evenings a week. I also helped at St Andrew’s Hall, making meals for the Servicemen. It was there that I learned to make summer pudding, which was one of the favourites with the men!

Food was rationed but we didn’t starve. My father had a large allotment so we always had plenty of vegetables and soft fruits. My mother did marvels with what we had.

During the air raids on Norwich our house was slightly damaged by a bomb. Four houses near us were completely destroyed by a direct hit, and some people were seriously injured. Our doors and windows were blown in by the blast, but we were in the Anderson Shelter down the garden and so weren’t hurt. For a few nights after this we had to go and stay with friends while the house was patched up. It was difficult to find people to do repairs, so our windows remained boarded up for a long time, making the house seem very dreary.

Later in the war I had to do Air Raid Warden’s duties every third night. I didn’t enjoy this – going out as soon as the siren sounded in the middle of the night, wearing my rough uniform and tin hat. I was worried about treading on Doodlebugs which exploded on impact.
I went out with an American serviceman a few times but I wouldn’t say he was a typical GI. It was just a matter of going out to keep a lonely serviceman company, and although he did sometimes give me nylon stockings and chocolates, he never overloaded me with things. He used to cycle over from Horsham St Faith’s where he was based, but would never turn up until after he thought we would have finished our meal because he didn’t want to take our food. We corresponded for a while after he went back to America, but eventually lost touch.

On VE Day all the church bells rang. I was at work, but we were given permission to go into church, one at a time, to pray. I went into St Peter Mancroft near the City Hall which was chock-a-block with people. A cousin of my mother’s had come down from Yorkshire and she took us all out to dinner at the Castle Hotel that night. It was a lovely meal. I was wearing red, white and blue, as were many people.

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