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This contribution is posted by Torfaen Libraries on behalf of Mrs Ruby Rudge.

We had evacuees staying with us for the whole of the war — the Grandmother and most of the children were with us. Some of the children from the same family were sent to another house nearby but they all used to meet up at our house. The old lady worked in a gold shop and the gold dust had given her a very bad chest just like the coal dust affected the miners.
Our mothers used to make meals out of nothing, for example, they used to buy a lambs head and make a good saucepan of stew out of it. Of course we all grew our own vegetables and the men caught rabbits and we kept chickens. My Uncle used to get a shin bone and again we’d get a delicious stew out of this because of the marrow inside the bone. Women used to bake tarts for all the week. We also had beef every week — it cost 1/6d and we only had chicken at Christmas.
We had to share the few toys we had, as there were six children. My father was a miner so we had plenty of coal.

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