大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Angela Triggs of the CSV 大象传媒 on behalf of Eileen Page and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands ths site's terms and conditions

I can clearly remember the day that war broke aout. I was 13 at the time and I can remember my mother sitting on the bottom of the stairs, crying. I dont think I'd ever seen her cry before.

I can remember at the school we were at in Harborne (Station Road) we were photogrpahed putting those strips of sticky brown parcel tape in crosses over the windows, by the Birmingham Mail. My mother remarked (as you couldn't see my fact in the photo) that my hair looked nice !!

I left school at 14 which was quite normal at that time as we certainly wern't encouraged to stay on, and started work. I can remember it being quite normal to get off the bus and pick my way over glass and rubble and those thick fireman's hoses in order to get to work. It was just normal - we got on with whatever turned up.

My parents became ARP's and of course there were all sorts of incidents. When they went out at night I'd go to the Anderson shelter with our neighbour and her baby - who was in a wicker crib. My parents would just pick me up from there in the morning. My brother was 7 years older than me and refused to come to the shelter and slept in the house. I can remember one night a land mine was dropped on the main Wolverhampton / Birmingham road which was some distance away. It made a terrific noise and he shot out of bed onto the landing which was already full of dust, to see what had happened.... but he went back to bed !

And there was the queueing - if there was a queue you just joined it. It didn't matter if you didn't know what you were queueing for you just waited your turn. I can remember one Christmas queueing and getting some soap in a box which I gave to a friend for a present.

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