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"This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Departmentand Ashleigh Willetts and Victoria Tolson from Darton Community School on behalf of David N Mason and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

I was just a small child when the war started, about 16 months old. Mum was a housewife and Dad worked at Woolley Colliery on permanent nights.

As I grew up I went to Kexborough Primary School on Bence Lane. We used to have the gas van come to test the gas masks. We used to have to practise going down into the air raid shelters.

I had a lot of freedom as I grew up in the war years. We had a cinema at the end of the street; we went fishing and swimming in the summer and had lots of fun in the snow sledging on Bunny Hill. We played lots of games and read comics and of course listened to the wireless. We always had lots of things to do. I was the one who always got up to mischief! We didn’t seem to have the vandalism or the ‘nasty’ people we have now.

We had some German Prisoner of War near us and we used to go to the shop for them. They used the Germans to clear rubbish up.

We had a shelter in the back garden. One day Mum was calling me to get in the shelter but I was already there! I think I was about two years old then.

We didn’t have many problems with rationing. Father grew vegetables in the garden and we kept hens for the eggs. At Christmas we always had a cockerel. I remember the first time I had a banana, I was six, and I loved it.

I think we had plenty of clothes. Mother was a seamstress when she was younger so that helped. Some kids had really tatty clothes.

I can remember the planes coming over from the direction of Mapplewell, they came over Bence Lane where we lived. I kept having the same dream that every night planes were bombing him.

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