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I was sixteen when the war started, I was working in Leicester at W.A. Lea and Son in ladies and children retail, which was in Humberstone Gate. I used to fire watch on Lea’s roof two nights a week.
I left Lea’s when I was eighteen to do war work at Desford Aerodrome, for the civilian repair organisation, repairing aircraft which were; Defiants, Blenheim Bombers and Dakotas.
Also in the evening I was an Air-Raid precaution warden at Leicester Forest East until the end of the war.
In 1941, I met my husband, who was in the R.A.F. He came from Jersey, Channel Islands. In 1940 just before the island was occupied. He was stationed at Braunstone and Desford Aerodrome and he went over to France at D Day 10 then on to Germany.
In 1945 when the Channel Islands were liberated, he was given leave to go back to Jersey, to see his parents to get permission for me to go with him, as we had married in 1943, we went to the Air Ministry in London, permission was granted. We sailed from Southampton on the M.V. Hantonia, taking some of the evacuated children back to the Channel Islands in June 1945.

As we approached the islands, the children sang their Island songs, I will never forget their faces when they saw their parents waiting for them. Also my husband at seeing his parents again and the excitement at meeting my in-laws for the first time.

While on the Island the Red Cross Ship ‘Vega’ arrived with food parcels for everyone. Also on the Island we saw German bunkers which had been left in a hurry, containing bins of leafs and seaweed, they had collected to make a drink. As they were also starving towards the end of the war.
We left Jersey two weeks later, returning to England, me to work at the Ministry of Food and my husband to return to R.A.F. duties in Germany.

This story was submitted to the “Peoples War Site by Rod Aldwinckle of the CSV Action Desk on behalf of Florence Gwendoline Bisson and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the terms and conditions of the site

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