大象传媒

This story was submitted by Alison Tebbutt, Derby CSV Action Desk, on behalf of George Mason. The author has given his permission, and fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Since I was barely five when it began, I have almost no memory of my father during the war except from occasional postcards. A Miner before and after being a peacetime soldier, he was recalled very early as war threatened and I hardly knew him until after demobilisation. Yet our home was always full of men and boys. My mother, sister and I, lived in my widowed aunt鈥檚 three bed council house with four of her sons. We were always at least eight, two of whom worked daily in the pit. Sometimes the house filled to bursting point when my grandmother, or various aunts, uncles and cousins galore visited.

Some things stick out vividly from those years. First, air raids on Blyth and Newcastle. I remember the noise of sirens and being bundled into a makeshift shelter in the cupboard under the stairs. With the youngest four children, crammed into a tiny space, it was smelly, hot, and after the first few raids, not very exciting. The others crept under tables in the kitchen and scullery. We heard the crump of bombs and, after the all clear, could see the red glow of fire in docks and works.

We were never short of food, most of it home made or baked. We ate a wide variety of sweet and savoury suet puddings and countless Lancashire hot pots. I can still smell cake baking in the oven of a range never out and never short of coal earned by my miner cousins. Given our numbers, washing day each week was memorable. It began at about six in the morning when the fire under the copper was lit, and ended late, often in a damp house festooned with drying clothes. Washing by hand, and mangling, was usually done outside in the yard. We kids, as we got older, were sometimes able to help during the holidays by cranking the hand washing machine or turning the mangle. Only on really good drying days was the washing done in a day and even then ironing often spilled over. Another of our jobs as children was to take a milk bottle full of cream saved from the top of the milk and shake it to make extra butter. It seemed to take hours of muscle aching effort. I also remember we all bathed once a week.

My mother came north from Salisbury with father, then a peace time soldier. We visited Granny and rest of family several times during the war. Often we travelled overnight by train from Bedlington Station, changing at Newcastle and London. The trains seemed to be full of big khaki men with great kit bags. It was amazing that they always made a seat available for mother and the two of us children, even when it meant they had to sit on their kit bags all night in the corridor. I remember much kindness, smoking, talking, laughing and snoring-but no swearing.

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