´óÏó´«Ã½

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Nottingham on behalf of Jean Smith with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

I was 10 when the war broke out, my Dad and 2 brothers went to war and my sister went and worked on munitions at Raleigh.
For school we to used to have to go to peoples front rooms because they were afraid they’d bomb the schools.
Planes would go over Nottingham a lot to get to other places. There were big drums on the pavements which were burning at night to make a smoke cloud so the planes couldn’t see.
I worked on Castle Gate, the planes came down when people were walking along the street and the planes were shooting at people, machine gunning. People had to run for their lives, it was broad daylight. Lots of people died.
It was just me and my mother at home and we’d go under the table together at night as we were so scared, we’d comfort each other.
It was a very frightening time.
When it was all over we had a lovely big party in Slab Square, everyone got together — it was great.

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