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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Jenny Christian of the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library on behalf of Olive Cobb and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I remember well the preparations for the beginning of the war, the distributing of gas masks, getting black-out materials and my dad digging the garden ready for the Anderson Shelter.

I was working in the centre of the City and often had to hurry to a shelter on the way to work or going home. I was 21 at the time of the war

In the raid of April 1942 we were lucky to escape uninjured owing to the fact that as we lived in a terraced house there was no room at the back for an Anderson shelter so my dad put it in the front garden, and a bomb fell at the back of the house. This was in Trinity Street. An ironmongers shop in nearby Union Street was hit. There was paraffin, paint and other inflammable materials which created a fire, making a target for the other planes following. Our neighbours shared the shelter with us.

The next day after the bombs we went to stay at some friends house. In the city there was a bombed building with the smell of fire. There were stands for running water as the mains had been bombed.

I was being married the next year and after my mother had saved enough ingredients for a cake, and made it. Whenever we had to go down to the shelter we took it with us, plus a little metal attaché case with various essential documents. We found temporary accommodation while the back of the house was rebuilt and we could return.

Another incident I recall in 1942, we went out for the afternoon one day – we used to cycle everywhere – to somewhere south of Norwich. I wasn’t sure where it was as all the signposts had been taken down in case the Germans started machine gunning us.

In 1943 I got married and moved to Ely and I worked staffing canteens for the forces for one of the voluntary organisations. There were lots of airfields around there as well as the RAF hospital and all the troop trains going through Ely. We were sometimes there till 1am when the last train went through. Sometime we had to chase the service staff to make sure they didn’t take their cups away. We used to get to know the airmen as we used to sell food and chocolate. Then there were sad times when familiar faces never returned and we were told they hadn’t come back after a raid.

Ely was quite quiet though, there were one or two doodlebugs – but these fell outside the town.

Towards the end of the war we had a group of Polish soldiers from Italy. They couldn’t speak English – so I went to Cambridge to the library and got some translation books and helped to teach them English. One of the soldiers who stayed in England kept in touch until he died a few years ago.
We were in Ely at the end of the war – big celebrations – a fair in the market place and everything.

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