大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Dunstable At War Team on behalf of the author and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

In 1940 I was living with my mother in Great Northern Road. Shortly after, we purchased a house belonging to my uncle in the same road. Three days later my husband鈥檚 call up papers arrived. I stayed in the house on my own but I took in some evacuees. One older couple came from Clacton and worked all through the war at the rubber company in London Road.

Before we were married my husband joined the Territorial Army; he also belonged to the Home Guard in Dunstable. After his call-up, he was he was stationed at Yaxley and in various other places including the Isle of Wight. He operated searchlights, looking for German planes coming across from Europe. He was very lucky as he spent most weekends at home.

At home we had a cellar that had been shored up to make it safe. People without cellars had a kind of table with mesh pinned across the legs, so that they could crawl underneath, or they built an air raid shelter in the garden. We grew our own vegetables and we had an allotment; far more people had allotments then.

My first child was born during 1942, in a private hospital ward. I was issued with cod liver oil and orange juice from the clinic in Kingsway, Dunstable where they weighed the babies.

We had quite ornamental railings round our house but they were all taken down and given to the war effort. The cemetery in West Street had very tall elegant iron railings, and they were removed as well. However, I later understood they weren鈥檛 used which was a bit sad really.

I remember when a plane came right up the High Street in Dunstable. I was working in the shoe shop (there was no rationing on shoes), in middle row and when the sirens sounded. We headed down into the basement of Gibbs and Dandy in Church Street. Most of the staff from the shops in Middle Row went there and I think we took the customers with us too. The sirens would go once or twice a week but we didn鈥檛 always head for the shelters. We always carried our gas masks with us and at one point we had a practice gas attack. I think it was 1942 and we had to wear our gas masks while serving customers! It was very uncomfortable.

I was working for Blindells shoe shop and was responsible for the black-out. I was called up by the police one night as I had left the light on in the shop. They gave me a caution but it was ever such a small light, I鈥檇 forgotten to turn it off.

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