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"This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Department on behalf of Anne Denise Hawkins and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

I remember the blackout blinds, they were dark blue and we had thick curtains drawn over them. We lived at my Gran’s in Cudworth.

Some evacuees came from London and one of the neighbours, Mrs Wadsworth, took some in. One of the girls was called Rosie and all the boys swooned over her.

I remember the plane drones as they went over the house and the searchlights over Sheffield.

My Aunt Kathleen’s dog, a black and white collie, was taken into the Canadian army.

My ration book was blue and my younger sister’s was green and because of this we were allowed extra ‘goodies’. Word always spread fast if there were extra rations at ‘Boker’s’.

Mum used to keep food back so that we would have a good Christmas and Easter.

We never saw my dad, or seemed that way. He was head foreman at Monckton Pit and if the other foreman didn’t turn up for their shifts he had to stop. We used to take him fresh ‘packing up’. If he worked round to doing his own shift again (meaning he had worked four shifts back to back) and the other foreman didn’t show up he could call out the management to cover.

One day a telegram came to say my uncle, her only son, was missing in action and Gran just stood and cried, great big tears running down her face.

We used to walk to Felkirk Church over the fields. We’d take a neighbour’s baby in the pram with us. They were happy times really, we didn’t know any different.

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