大象传媒

Realising a war was imminent did not seem possible. I lived with my mother, 2 brothers and 3 sisters in Church Street, Grimsby. I worked at Liptons in Freeman Street, one brother was a ship's plumber on the docks of Grimsby, one at Harper Philips Engineering Works and an elder sister worked in a shop too. The younger ones were at school. Then we learnt children were going to be evacuated to the country. My young sister was one of these, and one morning just before the war started, instead of being at school she joined other children to go to Toynton All Saints, carrying her belongings and wearing a label with her name etc on. She was excited - we were devastated. She was loved so much by all of us, being the baby of the family.

Then on Sunday Sept 3rd, Britain had declared war on Germany, at 11.30am. The air raid sirens sounded, were we going to die on this first day of the war? Luckily it was a false alarm and for weeks it was known as the Phoney War - we grew blas'e about it. My young brother, 17 years old, and his orphan friend at Harper Philips went to join up, but made a mistake, both wanted to be together, but for some reason my brother joined the Navy and his friend joined the Air Force - so that was the parting of their ways.

In the meantime, with the men being called up, most volunteering, I was made manageress of Liptons - the youngest one in England. I was responsible for the rationing of food. People registered at the shops of their choice. The fairness of rationing was a fantastic achievement! I am proud of being part of this, even though I worked every Sunday counting thousands of coupons to take on Mondays to the Food Office in the Market Place for vouchers to replace food sold. You may wonder why I was not given a Forces Job, but I had TB and spent months in the Sanitorium so I was exempt. I married a sailor and had a son then I returned to work. My sister was a cook in the Naffe at Killingholme Airfield and we were suffering regular air raids. My mum's house in Church St was hit 3 times, the final time on July 13th. A high explosive opposite caused a lot of damage. We were not in the shelter as bombs were already dropping. I got hurt with debris which eventually led me to have my left eye removed years later. And for this I receive a war pension - not a good exhcange for an eye, you can imagine.

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