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I can remember as far back as being 3 years of age. I’d had my baby teeth out at the Dental Hospital. A couple of days later I developed Scarlet Fever, and my mam got scarlettina, as I was being taken to Walkergate Hospital Infectious Diseases, my poor mum had to cover her head with the bed clothes, while a man came in with a gas mask to fumigate the room. I was placed in a long ward. A neighbour, Mrs Machell sent in a doll and someone else an orange. The orange was shared out round the whole ward, we all got a tiny piece each. Yet when I woke during the night very, very late and couldn’t swallow a nurse came with a feeding cup and it was squeezed orange juice with pieces in. The next night we were all moved into an air raid shelter. I felt very scared. Then suddenly there was a very loud BANG. I looked along the ceiling, and there at the end of the roof it was on fire. I can remember screaming, and the next minute I was put into a cot with a big girl (remembering that this was an infectious disease hospital), and the next we were being handed through the windows. I remember the roughness of the soldier’s jacket as we were all laid on mattresses on the lawn. The next morning it was 2 in a cot.

In the morning my mam was standing in the Co-op to get the rations when someone said ‘Isn’t it awful Walkergate Hospital was hit last night’. She got such a fright she left her purse of ration books on the counter. She rang my dad who was an ambulance driver for the A.R.P. and he rang the hospital. They said I’d be better at home, so I was brought home.

My dad also used his coaches for the evacuations. My mam told me that people would be queuing right down the street booking a seat to see their children, some men on leave, and many was the time children would be heartbroken and homesick, so my dad would turn a blind eye and bring some of them home. They started popping up about half an hour into the journey.

I can remember queuing with my mam and the Co-op would sell broken eggs in jam jars.

When the night raids happened and my dad was on duty, our next door neighbour, Peggy Machall used to come down and keep my mam and me company. And when it began the 3 of us would huddle under the space under my dad’s huge desk. I can remember the whole street lit up in a green light.

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