大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/大象传媒 Radio Nottingham on behalf of Dennis Beckworth with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

I was 10 years old at the outbreak of war and lived on Noel Street in Nottingham with my mum, dad and 8 brothers and sisters. We were issued with gas masks and black out curtains. My dad was an air raid warden and would check for lights at night. He had fought in the first world war and had been badly wounded so couldn't fight in this war although he wanted to. My mum's main role was to ensure we had food and we all helped out by queing for food at various shops. The air raid shelter was at Shipstone's Brewery and we slept there every night for six months which was very frightening. The council then built a shelter in our garden that we shared with our neighbours. There was also a shelter at our schools - St Mary's at Hyson Green.
My younger sister and I were evacuated to Worksop where we lived at the Castleton Brewery initially before living at 14 Raines Avenue with the daughter and son in law of the brewery owner. They were a young couple without children of their own and they were very kind to us. We kept in touch for a long time afterwards. Our parents would come and visit us and one day our mum came to the local church where we were and told us we she was taking us back home to Nottingham.
I would see soldiers firing at airplanes from their camouflaged station on the Forest Recreation Ground. When the sirens sounded it was terrifying and we looked forward to the continuous siren signalling the all-clear. The church bells were due to ring if we were invaded and they rang by mistake a few times. The names of any people that were killed were put on a list at the police station. I knew people who were killed.
At the age of 14 I was sent to work in the Players factory - on pipe tobacco. It was considered important to keep tobacco production going to help morale. I worked there until I was 17.
On V.E. Day we heard the war was over from the radio. Everyone was told to put their lights on and we put the blackout curtains on bonfires. There were street parties everywhere. Months later, when the bombs were dropped on Japan, we were all horrified as no-one knew about the atom bomb and we didn't agree that it should have been dropped.

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