大象传媒

I was born in Camborne, and before the war I worked in a munitions factory in Tuckingmill called Bickford Smith. When the war started I was still working there. I鈥檇 work three shifts, 2pm till 10pm, 10pm till 6am, and 6pm till 2am. I wanted to do something to help with the war, a lot of people went upcountry to help, but as I had been working at Bickford Smith I thought I should just stay there. It was mostly women working there, most the men were fighting in the war.

I got married to my husband, Donald, during the war, in Plymouth. He was in the Navy and was called up during the war. He came from Tregeajjoran at the bottom of Carn Brea. We would meet in Plymouth on his weekend leaves during the war after our marriage. It would be very busy, we enjoyed the crowd, we all had our husbands with us, we had a good time. But I remember on my way to go see my husband, I鈥檇 go by train, and when going through Devonport I couldn鈥檛 believe my eyes. The roofs of the houses had gone, like they had been cut off with knives.

When I was back home in Cornwall, a bomb fell in Camborne high street and went through the smallest shop in the whole town, it went right through the window. Redruth Train Station was hit by a few bombs, people were killed. We heard about it on the way back from work, people saw my husband and asked who he was because he had his uniform on, and told him a bomb had hit the station. There were a few bombs that hit Falmouth as well, but in general Cornwall wasn鈥檛 hit with that many bombs, we were lucky really. But we could see the fires of Plymouth from Camborne, it was awful if you could see the flames from that distance. We were lucky in Camborne, we heard the planes at night but it didn鈥檛 bother us much, all the guns were in Plymouth.

The funny thing is, I remember we had ration cards, and when I would go to Plymouth to see me husband, I鈥檇 go to this shop, and they had these big pasties. We were on rations, so I sent one of the big pasties home to my family back in Camborne. It cost me more sending it than it did for me to actually buy it!

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