´óÏó´«Ã½

I was 22 years old when war was declared. I lived with my parents; my father was a marine engineer and was working on damaged ships. He also helped to fit the submarine detection equipment — Asdic.

I worked in my grandmothers newsagents shop. On nights when the air-raid siren sounded my mother insisted we came downstairs fully dressed and went into the garden to the Anderson shelter. We could hear the planes and guns. If there was a lull in the noise we could look out of the door and see the searchlights. It was very cold in the shelter during the winter. I bought myself a ‘siren suit’ which was like a long-sleeved boiler suit, which today would be called dungarees. I wore this during the night raids.

Sometimes after the ‘All clear’ sounded we went back to bed and then the siren would go again and back we went to the shelter.

As I had to be at the paper shop by 7o’clock, I am afraid I was often tired and irritable. One of the customers came in and told me her neighbour had received a telegram to say her son was missing; he was an officer in the Royal Navy and also a friend of mine.

All was not doom and gloom; at our local dance hall a company of KOYLIs (the Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry) had been invited, so a good time was had by all. Unfortunately the siren sounded twice during the next two nights. A year later I married my young man; he was also on war work on Grimsby dock doing electric welding. He was helping to repair ships. We went to live in a terrace house on the banks of the Humber.

Another year later I had a baby son, as we were still having air raids and we did not have an Anderson shelter in the garden so I used to come down stairs with my baby and sit under the stairs. I can remember singing the lullaby ‘Golden slumbers kiss your eyes’ over and over again. My husband felt he could not keep getting up every time the siren went. My husband worked very long hours but any time he had away from his work he went to his allotment so we did get some fresh vegetables. We also decided to keep chickens in our back garden. It was good to have fresh eggs and when any of the birds stopped laying they went into the pot.A friend gave us a cockerel but after a while we had to put that in the pot as the neighbours complained about its early morning crowing.

When I went to the butchers shop for my meat ration the butcher sometimes gave my young son a slice of corned beef the same shape as a small bar of chocolate. I remember making my son a winter coat out of a discarded man’s overcoat, we did a lot of make do and mend in those days. It has come rather hard to throw things away when you could think of things to do with them.

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