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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Sarah Housden of Norfolk Adult Education’s reminiscence team on behalf of Gladys Bisby and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

The war broke out in September on the day I got married. Everyone was panicking to get indoor and outdoor air raid shelters up. In June 1942 I had a baby right in the middle of an air raid. The doctor came to me wearing ARP uniform. My son was in an air raid shelter before he was one hour old. My mother-in-law came down from Doncaster to look after me, and she was more panicky than I was about the bombing.

When they bombed and fired Norwich I went to stay with my mother because she had a cellar to shelter in. It was planned that we would have evacuees from London to stay, but we went to the City Hall and asked if we could have a friend of the family who was having a baby and had been bombed out instead – so rather than a London person we ended up with a Norwich one.

Rationing was really tight, but the worst thing was the limited supply of gas and electricity, which were only on for a couple of hours a day at times. We would queue up for a stone of coal and a stone of coke. However I managed to bring my son up in these conditions I’ll never know! The war took away the pleasure of being a Mum.

Because I had a baby I got Cod Liver Oil and a pint of milk every day, and because my son was an invalid I was also given nutritional supplements for him. I gave up sugar so that the baby could have it. The Australians used to send us a parcel every now and then which had all sorts in it.

One of the hardest things was that I couldn’t get soap and I really needed it with a baby – especially with all those nappies to wash. Even after the war we were kept on rations for some time.

I had a pram made of wood because there was a shortage of metal. Everything I had was second hand. I was married in white velvet, and all my sons clothes were made from this dress. I also had a coat made for him from an old coat of mine. We had to make use of every bit of material. Things that get thrown away today would have been made use of then.

My mother kept a pub in Norwich which was always full of Americans. One day there was an Englishman in the pub who was sobbing his heart out. Mum gave him a drink and comforted him, thinking that something terrible had happened. It turned out that what had upset him was that he couldn’t get a girlfiend because the Yanks had got them all!

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