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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Deena Campbell from CSV Action Desk on behalf of Patricia McGowan and has been added to the site with her permission. Ms McGowan fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Because of the constant bombing of the Industrial area around Birmingham, a lot of folk went into the countryside and even changed jobs if possible. I was one of them! It got so bad at the BSA with the air raids starting before I could get back home, that it was decided that I should leave there. For a time I stayed with my sister, Evelyn and brother in law, Mick in Sutton Coldfield. They had moved into a new house in Springfield Road not far from the little pub called the Anvil. It was quite countrified in that area, fairly rural and not many bombs were being dropped there. So I felt a lot safer... Evelyn’s next door neighbour worked at Southall’s in Birmingham and there was a job going in the typing pool if I wanted it. The plan was that I could go with Mr Letts to work in the morning and would bring me back at night. I used to sleep under the stairs just to be on the safe side! I got the job and stuck it out for a while but I hated the stuff at Southall’s. We had a strict manageress in the pool. If you bent to reach for a hanky, you were wasting time according to her... I played up so that I would get the sack and I did! The raids were getting a little less in Birmingham so I went back home. I rang my old boss, Mr Silver of the planning Department at BSA and asked if there were any vacancies for a tracer. He said there was, so I went back to the job I liked commencing in the 17th February 1941. I stayed at BSA until 1943 — the year I married, but not to Bill or Bob (My previous boyfriends). I met Oliver Byrne in October 1942 and we married on July 3rd 1943. He was still in the army at this time and demobbed in 1946 then we set up home together and by this time I had a little daughter of two years old.

During my time of courtship with Oliver (Who I later called Jim), we often went to the cinema and loved those old movies which at this time were very up to date and modern. The local cinema was still a place to relax and forget the worries of the state the country was in during the war. In particular, romantic films were very much a sort of balm in those days and tended to lift one out of the gloom and in some way render us a false state of security.

Watching the old films of deep love and romance romantic exploits gave the audience the feeling being part of the scene. As far as I was concerned I came out of the cinema pretending I was Hedy Lamarr or Greer Garson — walking down the Colonial Road back to my home with a sort of dreamlike disbelief that I was still part of the film I had just seen. The people really took refuge in the lovely cosy cinemas of that area.

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