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This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Sarah Harding of Kirklees Libraries on behalf of Mrs. Porfitt and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Memories of Mrs. B. M. Porfitt.

I joined the ARP in 1938, where I had to do drill and other exercises. Wardens had to report to their stations when the sirens went off; I was in bed when the first sirens went off on the first night of the war, 3rd September 1939, and was woken by my mother. I couldn’t believe that the sirens were going off on the very first night! I was a voluntary warden in the Birkby area. Mrs. Newton was the full-time warden for Birkby; her husband was a special constable in the area. The other warden working in the Birkby area was Mr. Milner, a vet. The wardens’ post for the area was his converted garage, on Birkby Lodge Road. When I was on duty, I patrolled through Birkby, through the cemetery and up to the Halifax Road (where one night I had to tell someone to turn off their light).

I also carried out firewatching duties in Huddersfield. During the war, two single beds were put into Charlie Shaw’s music shop in the town so that firewatchers could have a rest during the night if they needed to.

I continued my ARP and firewatching duties until 1943, when my first child was born. I had wanted to join up at the beginning of the war but was not allowed to because of my occupation; my family ran two grocery shops, one in Birkby and one in Huddersfield. As I didn’t have an assistant it was considered more important for me to continue running the shops and make sure that the local people were fed! I had to do all the book-keeping for the coupons and ration books. People often asked for eggs, although we didn’t have many; I had to remember who had had some recently and who was due to have some next. My mother had been allowed to keep her car and was given a petrol allowance, as she had a lame sister who could not get around otherwise. However, all the shop deliveries were done on foot!

I remember very heavy snow in 1940, and having to carve passages through the drifts.
During the war our family took in Dorothy, an evacuee from Avery Hill School in London. Dorothy and I still exchange Christmas cards. We also took in a soldier after Dunkirk, and later a radar operator from Altrincham. As we had a spare bedroom we were expected to take someone in.

There was not much bombing in the Huddersfield area — we were very lucky. The hills around the town meant that aircraft coming over couldn’t get low enough over the town to bomb it heavily, although I do remember a land mine landing on an island in the River Colne. The shrapnel from the anti-aircraft guns at Almondbury was more of a problem — I was very nearly hit by a piece (which I kept for a while) on one occasion.

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