大象传媒

The story was submitted to the People's war website by Pam Riding of Kirklees Libraries on behalf of Mrs Hirst and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was very young when the war was on. I remember going to school with the gas masks. If you had forgotten your gas mask you had to go back home. I also remember my father being quite upset because he couldn't go into any of the services because he had had rheumatic fever when he was a young man. Mother went out to work and my father grew lots of vegetables. I can also remember baking with dried eggs. We had to go into the cellar when raids were on. My younger sister was born in 1940 and her gas mask had a funny face on. We had to have thick curtains for the black out. There was rationing and mother would send me down to the shop. There were hardly any sweets. My grandad lived with us and he wouldn't get out of bed when there was a raid on. One of the doodle bugs came over Meltham as they were aiming for David Browns. Another thing which sticks in my mind is a German plane which got stuck on the moors. Father took me up onto the moors to show me where it had come down. My mother came from Durham and we were there for V E day and there were all kinds of celebrations. The bonfires were lit and there were fireworks. As a child in the war there was both fear and excitement.
We used to knit scarves for the soldiers and some of the men enrolled to help. There was a lot of sharing in those days and you went into one another's houses a lot. When I think back to rationing, my mother must have worked miracles making meals
I can remember being bathed in front of the fire and I used to think I wish they would be quick in case there is a raid and I have to go down in the cellar and yet I didn't want to go down into the cellar. There were air raid shelters up and down the street which we didn鈥檛 use as we went into our own cellar. Really I wasn't old enough to realise all the implications of what war meant.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.