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This story has been submitted to the People’s War website by Anne Wareing of the Lancashire Home Guard on behalf of Hannah Whitehead and has been added to the site with her permission….

I was ten years of when war broke out and living in Gt. Harwood Lancs. I went to St. Bartholemew’s School, leaving when I was fourteen years of age.

I went to work as a spinner at Birtwistle and Fielding and there I became a volunteer watching for the German planes coming over. We used to have to go to the top of the building into what was known as the ‘Crow’s Nest’ and there we would stand, with a pair of binoculars, looking and listening for the aeroplanes coming. We knew whose they were, long before we spotted them, by the sound they made.

I lived with an Aunt and Uncle and there were five children of us. My father at the time was an ARP warden in London, he saw many dreadful sights there.

I met my husband when I was 19 he was in the Royal Navy when I met him, but later he transferred to the Army, I remember his number was 14984963. he was stationed at Barrow near Clitheroe. I met him in the April and married him two months later in June. He had wanted to get married before he went abroad, but we didn’t have a honeymoon as he had to leave later the same day. I remember everyone coming from work to witness our marriage, I wore a pin stripe two piece, black shoes with red bows and a black hat with a red feather. Sadly we had been unable to get in touch with my dad, so he was unable to attend.

My husband died shortly befor our Golden Wedding.

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