大象传媒

Margaret Barron was 3 months old when the war started. She was to young to be evacuated or to remember when war was declared, but she does remember when her dad went away to fight in the war. She lived in Bradford and had a brother who was 4 years older and a sister 18 months younger. When she was three years old she started school and her mum put her on the bus every morning. Her mum had three jobs to keep her and her brother and sister at school. She remembers the air raid sirens, blackout curtains and the bomb shelter. The bomb shelter was at the bottom of the garden and had a curved top with steps leading down into it.
At the beginning of the war her dad had a protected job at the cinema, this is because if people went to the cinema it helped keep morale high. But then he got called up to go and fight in the war. When Margaret was four she got scarlet fever and was sent to hospital, while she was in hospital she caught measles and spent weeks in hospital.
During the war the food was rationed. Margaret told us that there wasn鈥檛 any fruit apart from when they were at school and bananas were sent from Canada. There was only one banana per class so the teacher had to cut it up and share it between the children. There were also no sweets and they continued to be rationed into the fifties. You were allowed 2oz of meat, cheese and butter per person each week and everyone ate a lot of vegetables because people grew them in their gardens. When she was young she didn鈥檛 have any toys but she dreamt of having dolls, shoes and other toys, and she said that eventually for her 60th birthday she received a doll.
When the war ended she remembers there was loads of street parties and everyone made lots of cakes. She told us that when the war ended her dad didn鈥檛 come home straight away because had to do some jobs in the army. He returned home in 1946 and after he had died they discovered his diaries. A couple of years ago she went to the Italian war memorials with her husband and friend and she said the graves were immaculate.

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