大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Julia Shuvalova for GMR Actiondesk on behalf of Mrs Babette Young and has been added with her permission. The author is fully aware of the terms and conditions of the site.

My mother was French. She and my father had met during the First World War, and later we used to spend some time in France. I remember our summer vacations there in August 1939. We were advised to leave as soon as possible, as the hostilities may have begun.

There were four sisters in the family, and two of them joined The Free French in London. I stayed in Manchester. When I left school, I had joined the Child Care Reserve and had worked at the day nursery. I liked working with children, and after the war I became a teacher.

We felt safe in the house where we lived. My father had dug an underground shelter, which connected two gardens. Every time our neighbours descended there, they would say, with a typical Mancunian accent, "E-ya, we've got the shelter!" However, our joy could not be complete: behind the house there was the railway.

My father did not go to war, but he had been a member of special technical forces. At the end of war he was called to join the engineering forces, and went to Germany to help dismantle the weapons.

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