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This story has been entered onto the site by David on behalf of Collin Crozier and they fully understand the conditions.

Collin Crozier was six years and nine months old when World War II broke out. He was not evacuated as he lived near a small town at the time, Swalwell. He attended Swalwell County School when the war broke out and was still going when the war came to an end, (VE Celebrations).

Collin often would enjoy going out with his friends playing hide and seek, skipping and other miscellaneous running games, but it was quite limited as sports equipment was very scarce and most people did not have access to it. The local river, The River Derwent was very popular for swimming among the children; fishes were also seen and on hot summer days, net fishing was quite popular with the children. Collin found it hard to keep himself occupied by just fishing so he used to go and play some bat and ball games such as rounders and Montiskitty. Other games which were popular with the young children are also popular today like tag, blocky and bulldog.

Neither Collin nor his sister Irene needed to be evacuated, but some of their neighbours received evacuees from London and the Midlands, some were retrieved after a short while and some were there for the long haul of about 5 and a bit years.

‘Bombs were very common around the Newcastle area, places such as Byker were bombed for their train supplies to push the allies back slightly, the fires which blazed were very powerful and often lasted for quite a while. My father was often called out to the blazes which had struck overnight, as he was often called further away, he even visited parts of Coventry when the Blitz started. He began to stay down there for weeks at a time. But the nearest bomb which fell in our area was from a German bomber which had raided through the night; it only killed on, a cow. The cow was killed in Clockburn Woods. It was thought that the Germans were aiming for the Coke works at Winlaton Mills.’

Rationing was a major problem in Britain but Collin, his family and his neighbours could all cope quite well. They would all grow their own vegetables and exchange or even give away the excess food that they didn’t need to people that needed it more. ‘The only problem was the shortage of meat products but we could all cope very easily and everything we didn’t have we could trade for it. Everyone was very determined to overcome this problem as they knew that they were helping in the war effort.

Many of Collin’s relatives were involved in the war effort, and many of them were involved in the army, he had two uncles who were serving abroad in France, an aunt in the WAAF (Women’s Air Force, they didn’t have any combat missions, just flying the planes from base to base for the men) and a Grandfather who was in the Home Guard. His father was in the Fire Brigade as he had always been since Collin was a young child, based in his home area, but he was quite often sent to Coventry with some of his work friends to put out the fires which were being made by the Blitz. Another of Collin’s aunts was a nurse, they were based in London and they awaited some casualties to be brought in from France, in the later 1940s one of them was even taken to France to help the soldiers who needed aid over there.

Collin was twelve years and five months old when the VE celebrations began at the end of the war, and his two uncles came home safely with no more than stories to tell, but the rationing was not completely abolished until the late 1940s and early 1950s.

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