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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 Molly Snelling and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was living in Norwich during the war and working at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital as a laundry maid. I lived on the hospital site in the ‘Maid’s Home’ but this got burnt out by incendiary bombs. I lost all my stuff, including a brand new bike. We were moved into another Maid’s Home, but this one got a direct hit from a bomb. I was in there at the time, and ended up flat under a door that was blown off its hinges. I got out safe with only cuts and bruises. As soon as we got out we had to rush round the front of the hospital to help the patients out. All we were wearing was our night clothes.

I had come back from home leave on the Monday but had left most of my clothes there. Because we were bombed out I ended up going to Postwick on an Eastern Counties bus wearing silk pyjamas to collect my clothes from home. It was a fortnight before the WVS came in to replace our clothes. We were each allowed one jumper and one skirt, plus a pair of shoes.

In the hospital I saw lots of people who had been bombed out — including several tiny children. The whole area around the hospital was heavily bombed even though there was a cross on the building. They couldn’t have seen it — maybe because of the blackout.

My duties as a laundry maid included putting the sheets through a six roll calendar, which was heated red hot. We also had cleaning duties, such as cleaning the windows with vinegar, and the blanket room floor — which was so hot that water dried as soon as it was put on it. We put the clean sheets in a basket and the porters would collect them. The Matrons’ and doctors’ stuff was handled differently, and there was a special collection. It was hard work sorting out the dirty laundry. Sometimes we would find people’s false teeth and such like, wrapped up in sheets.

I was at the Norfolk and Norwich all during the war until I got married, and then after that time the Doodlebugs came. After I was married I lived in Panxworth. My husband worked on his father’s smallholding. You could tell the time by the Doodlebugs — they came at 6pm, 9pm and 1am. We could hear their noise, and when it stopped we would wonder where they were going to land. We did have one land near us once.

I was pleased to get through the war safe and well.

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