大象传媒

Catherine Summers: Quiet time in Carmarthenshire

My family is from Yorkshire, though I was born in Canada. Yorkshire people are usually known for being very outspoken, but I tend to keep my mouth shut.

I lived with my sister in Carmarthenshire because both our husbands were abroad in the Army. We helped to receive evacuees from London and elsewhere, looked after them and took them on the bus to the cinema. I was an ARP warden so I was sometimes called out at night when there was an air raid warning. I was taught how to rescue people from fire. If I was called out, I had to jump on my bike and go off into town.

My husband was away for two years and we had virtually no contact whatsoever during that time. It wasn鈥檛 like today, when you can just pick up your mobile phone. There were a few letters from him, but they were all censored. I wasn鈥檛 lonely though, because I was with my sister and her two children, and we sometimes had as many as six evacuees in the house, because there was enough room for them.

This story was collected by Genevieve Tudor and submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Graham Brown of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Catherine Summers and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

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