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There was only one flying bomb in Buxton. It was December 1944 and my mother was in a nursing home, recovering from the recent birth of my younger brother. There was an Irish nurse at her side, and as they heard the bomb she made the sign of the cross, said `Pray to the Holy Mother’ and ran out of the room, leaving my mother alone with her newborn son! Luckily the bomb passed over, and landed without exploding in a nearby field.

We had clothing coupons, B.U’s or bread units, meat was rationed and sweets. They were rationed until years after the war. There weren’t anything like bananas, as nothing crossed the Atlantic.
A black-market racketeer was caught in our town transferring an animal in a hearse that looked like it was on its way to a funeral. The Police had been tipped off and when they opened up the coffin there was a dead pig inside! Suspicions had been raised as it was unusual to see such a vehicle on the road - most where laid up because of the petrol shortages so he must have bribed the Undertaker!!

Compared to people who lived in the cities we were very lucky. We didn’t really know that there was a war on except sometimes we saw soldiers on leave, and there were local men who never returned. You’d ask where Mr So-and-So was and they would tell you he had been killed.
These things come back to you but after the war no one wanted to talk about it. I can’t remember the end of the war, although we must have celebrated it.

I remember that after the war there were still rows and rows of ammunition stocked piled by the sides of the road, just outside Buxton.
One night the whole lot caught fire. I was at Thornleigh School, and we had a terrific view of the firework display from the top windows of our dormitory. There wasn’t much sleep that night — we had never seen anything like it!

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