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After my father was killed in the war, I was moved into an orphanage in Leeds run by nuns. Aged only 8 at the time, I was to stay there until I reached 16. The days were long ones, starting at 5:30 am when we would have our gruel for breakfast. Immediately after this, we had to complete our chores which usually meant cleaning the orphanage. We only received a couple of hours of schooling, and after that we had to look after the younger children, though we did have time to play games such as netball or tennis, which I hated. The evenings were usually spent rehearsing or playing concerts that the orphanage staged to raise money to make the wings of planes. There were usually a couple of concerts every six or seven weeks where we would sing and dance, and it certainly provided a bit of light relief from the war.

We were only allowed visitors once month, lasting around two to three hours. Days out usually consisted of half a day at the seaside, though interruptions to this by the sirens were frequent. That said, as children we didn’t so much mind the bombs going off because going to the shelter meant that we got extra food: hot chocolate and cake, for example, was a real luxury.

The uniform for the orphanage was based around a black gym slip, with a white blouse for when we went to ‘school’. We could wear a normal frock when not in school, but if we had no shoes we would have to wear clogs.

At Christmas, you were lucky if you got an orange in your stocking! You would get a box with a bar of soap, a comb and some sweets in, with a little piece of fruit, be it an orange or an apple.

I don’t really have many happy memories from during the war, and I never kept in touch with anyone from the orphanage. I even lost touch with my brother and haven’t seen him for over sixty years now.

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