大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Julia Shuvalova for GMR Action desk on behalf of Emily Ratcliffe and has been added with her permission. The author is fully aware of the terms and conditions of the site.

My first memory is of my mother, my sister and I, and a lady from next door listening to the radio, waiting for the Prime Minister to come on. When he came on, it was to tell us the terrible news that we now were at war with Germany. We all went to the church at night, and everybody had taken their gas masks with them. There was a lady at the church who was making cases for these out of rexine, any colour we wanted.

I was still at school when the war started. I remember when the bell went off in one long ring we all went in an orderly fashion to the air raid shelters which were underground. Fortunately, we never had an air raid whilst I was at school.

The air raids began in earnest just as I started working in an office. On my very first night, as I was coming home, the siren went off just as I was getting off the bus. I had to walk home for about 20 minutes, in the black out, and my mother and sister were very relieved when I got home safe.

I was only 14 then, and life seemed to carry on as usual. We all used to go out in the black out to the dances, church, Sunday school, and everywhere.

There was rationing of food etc., and we had coupons for food, but we never seemed to go anything short. I had wondered just what my mother did without for us. Even sweets and chocolates were rationed. Stockings were in short supply, and my friend Dorothy and I used to put gravy browning on our legs, with a line down the back (for summer). One day we were going to visit Dorothy's auntie and uncle (who were quite posh), when it started to rain. Then to our horror the gravy browning began to run down our legs! When we arrived to Dorothy's relatives, we had to go straight to their bathroom to sort ourselves out.

The first air raid we had, my dad came to wake Mabel and I and told us to go to the air raid shelters. These were two brick buildings in the field at the top of our garden. My dad was an air raid warden, so he was used to having to go on duty when the alert went off. Later he joined the Fire Brigade.

The night of the Manchester Blitz was very frightening. My dad was on duty, so my mother, sister and I all cuddled together on the setae, listening to the planes going over. Very fortunately we didn't have any damage in Dukinfield, but Hyde the next down did. The damage done to Manchester was terrible.

My dad had to go on duty to the Liverpool Docks. We were so frightened because the damage there was terrible. And my dad's cousin was killed in the Liverpool Blitz leaving a wife and two children.

All our boyfriends were either in the air cadets or the Home Guard. I had a penpal who was in Italy. I also had a letter from a soldier in Burma. He, too, lived in Dukinfield and attended the same church. Later he became my husband. He had lots of memories of war, but sadly he has died.

I started selling National Savings stamps on our street and the office. My grandma and I went out each Saturday morning with a tin, collecting for the Forces Fund. At school we all knitted balaclava helmets and gloves for the soldiers and made special cards to put in the parcels when we sent them. We dug to victory growing our own vegetables, etc. I longed for bananas, but we didn't have them!

We had always had very dark thick curtains during the war, which had to be shut. If there were even a chink of light showing, the air raid wardens who were on the look-out would shout "Put that light out!"

We all had identity cards with our name and number on them. It was difficult to make a journey anywhere. Petrol was rationed, and all road signs were taken down. Beaches and some roads had also had cement blockades.

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