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I was 12 when the war started. I had just started senior school in Wolverhampton.
I was the eldest of 6 children. My Father worked on the railway.

We had an Anderson Shelter. My brother was about 2 at the time and it was my job to grab him and run to the shelter when the siren sounded. We were quite lucky that there weren’t many bombs dropped by us.

At 16 I left school and joined the GTC (Girls Training Core) to train us in case we were called up.

I also used to go round farms doing whatever needed doing. Pea picking, potatoes, beans whatever. We did get paid for it but the money always went to the Red Cross.

I used to cycle to various dances around Wolverhampton. There were always plenty of partners because there was two camps very near us. One was a mixed camp and the other was full of Dutch.

I used to try and make sweets out of dried milk and things. My brother tried to make some gravy once but he used Camp Coffee instead of gravy browning! He tried to make toffee one day while we were all out. We knew he was doing this and we looked forward to going home to eat it. He had gone out and left a note on the toffee saying ‘Get out your old iron teeth!’ it was so hard we couldn’t even bite it, let alone chew it!

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Jacci Phillips of the CSV Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hereford and Worcester on Behalf of Ivy Pope and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions

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