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I was eleven years old having just passed the scholarship when war was declared the first week in September 1939. I started the Kesteven and Grantham Girls’ School two weeks later. I was living at Barrowby, nr Grantham, and I think I felt a feeling of excitement with starting a new school and not realising the full extent of being at war.

I remember preparations at home with thick blackout curtains, the windows being criss-crossed with brown sticky paper, iron railings being taken away to be melted down for metal, shop and road signs were taken down to confuse the enemy if they invaded. Brick air raid shelters were built in the village, and in Grantham Anderson shelters were put in houses. Air raid Wardens were recruited and Home Guard units were formed and everywhere was in darkness. If a light was seen a Warden would shout ‘ put that light out ‘. We were also issued with identity cards, gas masks which we carried everywhere and stirrup pumps for putting out any fires. Ration books and clothing coupons were collected from the Ministry of Food Office in Grantham. I was in the Girl Guides and we went round the village collecting newspapers for the war effort, and stuffing palliates with straw for mattresses, our parents were asked to ‘dig for victory ‘by using all available land to grow vegetables. I also remember a very large field between Grantham and Barrow by full of tents where soldiers were billeted.

Grantham was quite badly bombed due to Marco’s gun factory and also the local aerodromes, it was also on the flight path for Coventry which was badly bombed. Barrow by was only two miles away, and after the sirens had started we would see the search lights and hear the bombs dropping which was very frightening, we knew the sound between the German planes and ours. We would always dread the moonlit nights. I remember three German planes were shot down in Barrowby, we would go the next day and look at them. I believe they were Messerschmidts. We would pick up souvenirs, mainly micra from the windscreens which the prisoner of war would make into rings. They were clever at making things. The planes were not guarded as they would be today. The German prisoners were working at Colsterworth Ironstone Mines where my father worked.

School lessons were cut short as Camden Girls’ High School was evacuated to Grantham. We went to school in the mornings and they had the school for the afternoons, if there was an air raid we had to get under the desks. Margaret Roberts who became Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister, was also at the school at this time. I remember cycling home after school one afternoon and seeing a ‘ dogfight ‘ between a Spitfire and a Messerschmidt which became quite a common sight. Carrying our gas masks we would cycle to school stopping at the Guildhall in Grantham to look at the bulletins posted outside of the casualties from the bombing. My mother had to go and work at Marco’s and would send me to Grantham market on Saturday mornings to join a long queue for tomatoes, and get broken biscuits from Woolworths. We seemed to manage on rations but food could also be obtained on the ‘ black market ‘ or ‘ under the counter ‘. Parachute silk for making clothes was also available to us.

My father was al lorry driver at Colsterworth Mines and one day when he was driving to Stainby a lot of incendiary bombs had been dropped. He brought one home that had not exploded; he had been told that it was quite safe. I had it in a drawer in my bedroom for thirty three years. I brought it down many times to show visitors, it was about fifteen inches long with a green fin. I was quite proud of it. It became a problem when we cleared my parents house in 1975 — what should we do with it ? My husband and I took it home to Sleaford with it between my feet in the car. Eventually, he took it to his shop in his bicycle basket and rang Sleaford Police Station who sent for the Bomb Disposal Squad who exploded it.

After the Guides I joined the Junior Red Cross and helped at the Church Army Canteen opposite the Railway Station in Grantham where the servicemen could get refreshments and a bed for the night. These are my wartime recollections.

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