大象传媒

Hello, I'm Flo, and I've come to the Thinktank Museum today from The Birmingham Settlement Day Centre.

Before the war we lived at Alum Rock. My mum brought us all up on her own because had been killed in the First World War. We got by on a widow's pension of 10 shillings per week. She used to take in washing at home to make a little extra money.

I was the youngest of 7 and then there was another baby after me but he died from measles (there was no cure from measles in those days). I used to have all the hand-me-downs and I hated that!

I got married in 1939 to Reginald Albert Orford. He was a toolsetter at ICI. I'd already been courting with him for 6 years. We got our own place in Kingstandingside, Great Barr, once we were married. We'd been saving up so we could be well set up together. I'd been working as a typist in the office of Hughes' Biscuits in Bordesley Green. I stopped working there when I got married. I'd been working since I was 14 years old (when I left school) like all my friends.

In 1940, we decided that we hadn't enough money coming in so I got a job as a typist at Schraders Valves on Tyburn Road. I enjoyed the company at work. We went dancing and all the usual things. We would go to the Palais de Dance on Monument Road. It was always very busy. I'd go with my girlfriends and sometimes my husband.

We'd all dress up very smart - long dresses and put up our hair. We'd drink lemonade at about tuppence a glass. We'd walk there and home (it was before all-night buses!). It was very dark because it was the blackout. You got used to it.

In the evening we'd play cards and so on. There weren't many bombs in Great Barr but but some fell on Perry Barr on the ICI works. I worried about my husband because he worked night shifts.

When the first bombs dropped we hadn't got an air raid shelter so we went under the stairs. I was terrified - I didn't know what was happening.

I had my daughter in 1941 at the Loveday Street Maternity Street, just off Summer Lane.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.