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I remember well certain aspects of life during the war and I have lots of snippets of memories of my life and the lives of my family throughout the war years. I remember school very well; when the sirens went off we had to hurry to the huge concrete shelters in the school grounds. Inside they were damp and horrible but the teachers would encourage us to sing songs to raise our spirits.

Rationing:
Because of rationing we had our school dinners at St Wilfred’s instead of our own school. We used to ask for ‘seconds’ because we were always hungry. When I was 15 years old I wanted to leave school but because my father was in the Navy, my parents received 15 shillings if I continued with my education, so my mother insisted that I stayed on at school.

Rationing was a part of our daily lives, things like white flour were rare and what we did get my mother would sift with a sheet and use it to make stottie cakes, these were also rare so when we had them they didn’t last long!

My father was in the Navy, on the minesweepers. When he docked at places like Dover he would send us boxes of fruit, home grown from the orchards there. He once sent us a box of chocolate biscuits, which didn’t last us long either because chocolate was very scarce! My father once sent some material which my mother made into a pinafore for me; I wore it for years.

Entertainment:
There was no television, so for amusement we listened to the radio, played cards or other games, such as hopscotch. People would often pass the time by making their own mats and of course many people could not afford to buy them.

Blyth had and still has a lovely beach. We used to go there a lot before the war, but during the war year we were unable to use it because of the barbed wire all the way along the edge of the beach. We were allowed to play near the bandstand and even though there was no band playing we still had loads of fun.

Family:
A lot of my family members were involved in the war; my brother-in-law was a prisoner of war in Italy. When Italy surrendered he was released, but he could not get out of Italy straight away. He hid with an Italian farming family and helped them with their work on the land. Whenever a German Army truck passed by he would have to hide. He was eventually shipped out of Italy, back home to England.

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