大象传媒

My husband was called up, he didn鈥檛 want to go in the Army, and so he eventually ended up in the Cold Stream Guards. We married in 1942, and then he went to Italy.

When my husband was away, he got injured. I think he went up on a land mine, so he wasn鈥檛 able to write as he was in hospital lying on his front. I never heard from him for months and months.

He came home in 1946 but was never the same, because he鈥檇 seen friends killed and had had malaria, he couldn鈥檛 sleep at night. When he did come home he brought this great big Alsatian with him. I don鈥檛 know how he got it home, as it never went in quarantine or anything. It was more like a donkey and I was scared stiff!

What my husband did mind was the air raids. He鈥檇 be up two or three times a night, go down to the shelter 鈥� well, you never knew did you. The air raids went on for years. It didn鈥檛 matter how many times you got up in the night, because I used to have a bike, so used to ride into Pembroke Street and worked in the laundries there.

I still had to go to work. When you were in the laundry and there were blackouts, you were sweating because of the heat. You couldn鈥檛 have any lights showing, of course. When we lost our home down at Bartholomew, the bike went to pay for that, as they called it a luxury.

The buses were painted dark blue, and then we had the dull lights as well 鈥� you had to guess where you were when you were outside, because there were no street lamps or anything. So you had to find your way, but I went to the cinema once to see a film, and because a siren started in the film, I thought it was the sirens outside. I said to my husband 鈥淨uick, we鈥檝e got to go home!鈥� - I suppose I like other people was living on my nerves.

My brother lost a few friends, quite young, lovely men. My mum lost her step brother on the Glorious at nineteen - no age really.

When we were bombed out, we didn鈥檛 have anything -nothing at all. The lovely present my dad brought home from China, a turquoise dressing table 鈥� I never used it because I was going to have it in my own place. Well, of course that went up with the whole house, so that was that. My brother was really upset because he was a musician and the piano was totally wrecked 鈥� all you could see were the keys. So when we had to leave, we went to a requisition flat down in Gifford Terrace 鈥� we had to clean it out.

We had to go to the council offices to get some mats, and we had about three mats with large holes, a corrugated bath and some bunk beds. There were massive rooms in Gifford Terrace, so we had my brother鈥檚 friend Huey as a lodger. It was terrible really when you come to think of it. My mum bought another piano for my brother again when we lived down Gifford.

We were up shopping on Mutley Plain, and my brother must have called, and of course he went into the front room and saw the piano 鈥� so he was chuffed to bits. We never had shampoo for our hair; we used to use washing up powder instead. It was a different sort of time then; we had a very limited choice of things, unlike today. You had to put up with what you had, as with shoes, we bought rubber soles and stuck them on to make them last longer. My dad used to buy the brown ones for his heels, so he could keep turning the heels. You never had money for anything else, whatever you had you had to make last. But you got on with it and we were happy.

Our bus ride to Devonport once a month was quite exciting. First of all we went to the shops, then out to Devonport. Gran used to have one of those tickets she paid for, and then you could go once a month and we used to buy clothes. It seemed like we went for miles, down Union Street in a tram out to Devonport. We also went to the park, loved it and made the best of it. The air force men always had their hair done nicely

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