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"This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Department on behalf of Lilly Allsop and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."
Dad was in the army. There were 8 of us at home, neighbours used to help mum get all of us into the shelters two gardens below us. We used to have sandwiches and singsongs. It was scary when they were bombing Sheffield.

We used to live in Manor Avenue in Goldthorpe and we had a long way to walk to go to school but we played games along the way. There was no traffic to worry about then.

They started to do school meals in the Salvation Army citadel in Goldthorpe. They were lovely as we were on rations and this was extra. As the Salvation Army Citadel was near home we had a long walk back for lunch then back for school and then back home again after school.

I can remember a big van coming into the school playground and we had to put our gas masks on and go ‘through’ the van to test them. That was scary.

The children were measured and if they had extra big feet they had extra coupons to get shoes with.

If we went out at night we had to wear a luminous badge on our sleeve because of the blackout. So that people could see us.

Mum used to send us up to Crosby’s to get blackout blinds to block out every bit of light.

We had string attached to the electric/gas light and the door. As the door opened it used to turn the light out so that no light was showing. If it did the Air Raid Warden used to yell ’Put that light out’.

19 December 1944, my birthday, I had been ill and mum treat me to a concert at the Empire at Goldthorpe and the stars of that show were Flanagan and Allen. Two lovely girls called the Bradshaw Sisters who were from Goldthorpe were in it, they used to sing and dance.

My mum had her last child at 11.45 pm on 8 May 1945. There was a bonfire at the top of the road and someone had brought a piano out into the street and people were doing the conga through the house until she went into labour. The excitement when my brother was born. Everyone was trying to choose a name for the baby and offering money if they called him after the big four leaders — Winston Churchill, Bernard Montgomery, Franklyn D Roosevelt and Joseph Starling. Now my dad being the crafty old sod that he was, saw a way of making a bob or two. So he named him Bernard Franklin Joseph Winston Connolly. We never found out how much money he made but I don’t think my mum saw any of it. Needless to say my brother wasn’t very pleased with his name and has grumbled every time he has to sign anything.

We had prisoners of war at Hickleton Hall. They used to go pea picking with us. I think they were German and one of them was called Wolfgang. I can’t remember feeling threaten by them at all.

There was a family of evacuees from Hull and they always used to cry when they went in the shelters so they must have had an awful time at Hull because they were a lovely family.

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