大象传媒

I was born Barbara Stevens in 1924 in Swanwick, Derbyshire but lived in Somercotes with my parents, Victor and Ada Stevens in a butchers shop on Somercotes Hill.

I was just 15 in 1939 when Neville Chamberlain announced on the radio that war was declared with Germany. I had just left school and started to go to Nottingham to learn typewriting and book keeping. I walked to Pye Bridge to catch the train to Nottingham. All the carriages on the trains had their windows blacked out, with peep holes so people could see the stations.
We were often held in sidelines as troop trains went through the main station and often ended up getting home very late in the dark

My father was a butcher, and I remember people waiting for a few ounces of meat and sausage etc., we had so few things to eat, we had to grow our own vegetables and chickens, gather fruit and blackberries, bottling fruit and making jams. With our ration books things were in short supply, there were few sweets. For a special event like a wedding, everyone helped and the wedding cake was a pretend one made out of cardboard.

All of our homes were blacked out and remained so till the end of the war.

I remember my father making blocks of soap, soap was almost unavailable so in order to keep his shop clean, he boiled all of the ends of the fat in a large copper adding caustic soda. Afterwards it was rendered down and he used a large sieve to seperate the rubblish, putting the remainder in a large dish to set. It was powerful stuff, I was not allowed to use it because it burned your skin, but our shop was definately clean!

My uncle Percy Bowler who lived in Nottingham Road in Alfreton was suprised when an incendiary bomb fell on the garden path outside his front door, it made a big hole in the path and burnt itself out. Aeroplanes returning from attempting to bomb Derby Rolls Royce scattered the remains of their bombs over the Alfreton area.

There were lots of soldiers stationed in Alfreton belonging to the Royal Army Service Corps, many lorries and soldiers packed the streets, they used the drill hall and at the weekends the soldiers formed a band and held big dances. Many local girls married the soldiers.

I was a girl guide and as the leaders were called up on war work, we remained together and collected all newspapers and silver paper for special use.

At 19 whilst working in an office for Clowers a builders suppliers in Ripley I received a letter through the post calling me up for war work in a factory in Leicester where they made very small aeroplanes It was called Taylor Aircraft. I did want to join the army but they were not accepting anyone at that time. The factory I was in made very small aircraft that flew behind the enemy lines, it was called a Hedge Hopper, it had a very small light fuselage and was covered with linen. I often thought I would not like to ride in one let alone fly in such a flimsy plane.

I remember walking home from local dances in Leicester, everywhere so dark, then the sky would be lit up with bombs as they fell over Coventry. Before being stationed in Leicester, I had never been any further than Nottingham or Derby on my own.

I went to Leicester on the train, I was sent train tickets for the journey. Many people in the area were requested to house workers. My first place of lodging was in a large old house with a little old lady who only lived in two rooms, myself and another worker were to stay in the rest of the house, due to the condition of the house it was not really suitable for young girls and I soon found lodgings nearer to my place of work in Syston. I remained there until the end of the war. Every weekend I would catch a train back to Derby full of servicemen all standing like sardines. Then catching the bus home to stay with my parents.

Women were employed doing all the jobs that the men had done before they were called up, lady bus drivers, post women and crane drivers to name a few.

My brother, Roger Stevens was called up in 1939, he was a Royal Engineer, and saw service in many places, he was rescued in Dunkirk and he arrived in Scotland, he was sent abroad again and did not come home again for five years, seeing action all the way through, all of the way to Burma. It was a long hard war.

In April 2004 I returned to Leicester, for the very first time since I lived there. I could not recognise anywhere, the De Montford Hall being the only thing that I could remember, having attended many dances there. At the university I attended a seminar for guiders and met ladies there who rememberd my war, with all of the Americans taking over the town, and bringing gifts of the first nylon stockings, loads of chocolates, flooding the town as they came in Liberty Wagons, public houses only had short supplies of beer, so after a time towels used to go over the pumps, and they would move from one pub to another, until they had left the town dry.

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