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This story was submitted to the People's War website by Pam Riding of Kirklees Library on behalf of Mrs Bush and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
I was born in 1927 so when war broke out in 1939 I had just taken my 11+ test and started to attend Princess Mary High School. I attended there until 1945, so after my higher school certificate, I went to teacher training college in Camberwell in the East end of London. The building had suffered the same fate as many more in London and elsewhere.
The students had all been evacuated to Doncaster for the duration of the war, so those who had done one year were brought back several weeks before we new ones and had to physically take part in the cleaning to make the place habitable. We arrived to a place which was cold and strange — blistered paint and part of the roof missing. There was no heating so as the winter became colder so did we! To attend lectures wearing coats, scarves and gloves was not the most comfortable situation for learning, but we managed.
After two years in London I returned to Halifax where I had to work in a school there so that each month a certain amount was deducted from my salary to repay a loan I had to take when I went to college, so much for student grants!!
All the war years were spent at high school where I received a good education
free from many interruptions.

Save from regular air raid practice when we had to assemble at given places and proceed in an orderly fashion to the shelters.Gas masks were another thing we had to practise the correct use.
Evacuees from London came and were placed in homes with families where we made then welcome knowing how fortunate we were.
In 1941 at the age of 17 my brother was lost at sea during the Battle of the Atlantic, grief and shock hit hard and made a lifelong difference to our family. I well remember that fateful day, I was lifting my father’s dinner out of the oven when it fell and spilled, I remember there were carrots—
The holidays were either non existent or there were holidays arranged for Wakes Week, the annual holiday when the mills were supposed to close down, though I do not think they did during the war.
I went with others from school to farm camp where we stayed in a Lincolnshire village, sleeping on the floor of a hall and eating at a pub in the village. We had to get in through the window into the dining room as if we had entered through the door we would have had to go through the bar!!
´óÏó´«Ã½ was to stack corn into stacks of 8 or we were weeding carrots or picking potatoes. It was in its way enjoyable as we worked under a lovely blue sky listening to the aircraft from the air force stations, of which there were many in Lincolnshire. The pay was 1/9 an hour which we had to give to our teachers to pay for our keep. It sounds hard but we all enjoyed it and it holds many happy memories.
After the Dunkirk evacuation thousands of soldiers were brought up to Halifax. There were long trains full of them; we were watching them from a wall near my home. They were billeted in the houses, we had two soldiers.
Food was a great consideration. My father had an allotment where he grew vegetables so we always had plenty. The food was severely rationed and it presented a challenge to my mother who always fed us well by using what was available to the greatest advantage. We were never hungry and I wonder sometimes if she was! There was a food office where my mother worked, here the coupons were stuck on to a ration card that everybody had. Without this and the necessary coupons you could not get what you wanted.
We all had an identity card —I still have mine KEOX 60/4

Life was overshadowed as you would guess. My sister and I were always protected as there was an ever present fear that we would be lost as well as my brother.

There were nightly flights of enemy which flew over on the way to bomb Liverpool or Manchester. The drone was awful, we knew what was going to happen to some poor souls and the next morning we found out.
Anti- aircraft guns were on the hill behind us so we heard the bangs and saw the flashes they produced, also there were searchlights sweeping the sky- all quite scary to us youngsters.
My father was an air raid warden who with others kept watch at the post each night ready for any emergency. My sister and I slept in my mother’s bed where we felt more secure.

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