大象传媒

Betty lived in Swansea during the War. Her father was in the St.John Ambulance and tragically one of her brothers was fatally wounded in an air raid one night whilst helping him.

Swansea was blitzed for three nights running during 1941, with much devastation. Betty had a lucky escape as she was not in their Anderson shelter when it was hit; having been sent to friends. The house was badly damaged though, but the mantlepiece was untouched and the stairs were left dangling in mid air. Many in the district had to sleep on floors in church halls. There wasn't a lot of looting but her father lost a silver medal and a bowler. The culprit was harshly dealt with. Returning to the remains of their house, there was still some washing in the copper months after the raids. Betty rung it out and took it back to her mum. Her younger brothers and sisters were evacuated to Pembrokeshire. On their return home they could speak Welsh, something that not many could do in Swansea at the time.

Betty worked in an armamaments factory, inspecting the shells. Lots of the women there, and it was mostly women, were injured. The 40mm shells had many delicate components in the fuse and sometimes they exploded, with the women losing their fingers. When thunderstorms were about was an especially dangerous time, as the electricity in the air could trigger things off.

One aspect of rationing at the time was that food was "zoned". You could only eat what was available locally. In Swansea there was no Cadbury's or Fry's chocolate, just some locally made product. Other well known brands, such as Shredded Wheat, were also unobtainable. Bananas did not appear until two years after the war.

After the War, Betty moved to Birmingham to work in the BSA (British Small Arms) factory. Rather than armaments, she was helping the factory get back to building motor bikes. "Good on the drilling machine, I can tell you. Women got BSA bikes back on the road you know!"

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Moira lived in the Irish Republic during the War. She could only remember one bombing in 1940 and that was probably a stray attack. Some 30 people were killed in Dublin. Everyone went to the church to pray. The bomb gave an insight to the Irish as to what the British were going through. On D-Day everybody came out onto the streets, then attended Mass.

There were shortages in Ireland like everywhere else. A pot of jam was like gold dust. The richer people seemed to be able to get by though, with "under the counter tactics". After the War some shops lost their goodwill and custom because they had not been evenhanded to everyone.

(PK)

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