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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Janine John of the Cumbria volunteers on behalf of Elsa Wales and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

It started in 1939 — that was when we were told that we were at war with Germany. Of course, everything fell into place as quickly as possible, there was the blackout, and we weren’t allowed out for quite a bit. Then we had to go on terrible rations. It was ham from America and all that. We lived on it more or less!

They were calling everyone up — those up to a certain age had to go first. My brothers, one was sixteen and one was seventeen, belonged to the Territorials so they had to go straight away and that was to France in 1939. They were in France by the end of the year. They were there until the Germans bombed Dunkirk and Andrew was taken into Germany’s hands. They took him prisoner and made them walk from Dunkirk right up in to Bavaria because they didn’t have any transport. The prisoners had to walk all that way. Then they were thrown into a prisoner-of-war camp and they lived on turnips. At first they put him down a mine and then because he was an engineer they brought him up to go on typewriters, repairing them and so on. That was one of my brothers.

Arthur was my second brother. He was in the REMEs (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers), another engineer. A German pilot sent a bomb right amongst him and his friends which killed all those around him. He was hit as well. He had to wait for a French boat to bring them back from France to England and he was in hospital in Maidstone having plastic surgery for a long time. Then he went to London to help because the bombs were coming down there very badly. From there they issued him with a motorbike and two pistols. It was when the Japanese started their war. They hadn’t really started it but he was on the boat and as he got off the boat at Singapore the Japanese were waiting for them. They took him and that’s how he got to become a prisoner-of-war. He was there six years almost and they treated him very badly. He had a short temper and he answered one of the guards back - they put him in an oven for twenty four hours. That’s where the death railway was and they made all the prisoners of war go there. Arthur was working on that railway. They were dying like flies because they didn’t get enough food and the temperature was awful. It was an awful time, it really was. We didn’t hear from Arthur for three years. The Japanese were very naughty. They didn’t let us know. It was only through the Red Cross that we got to know that he had survived. Germany let us know about Andrew so they were alright.

That is the history of my two brothers. Arthur wouldn’t speak about it when he came back, it was so awful. He died through malaria. He got it very badly. He did survive a few years when he came back but it took his life. My youngest brother died too. They were only in their late fifties so they didn’t really survive very long after.

Another of my brothers was over it: he was older so they wouldn’t let him go to war. He did a lot of war work in this country and they had a bomb too. He was a brass moulder and a bomb came down on the furnace where they were working. He was never right afterwards and died at fifty. It threw him up in the air and killed quite a few of them. That was just at Leyland. He didn’t live his years out at all.

Finally, my eldest brother was the director of an Engineering place called ‘Gregson and Monks’. They were working hard for the war what with parts for tanks and the like. My poor brothers, they’ve all passed away.

I was on the shells in the ammunition factory. I used to go to dances as well in the blackout. When we were coming back from the dances the incendiary bombs were coming down as we were walking along. Little lights like little fires they were. They were so high up that they didn’t come down too quickly — well they didn’t seem to. They had a hissing noise and we were dodging them. Of course when you’re young you don’t worry do you? You don’t seem to have any nerves.

We were lucky because I lived in Fulwood on the outskirts of Preston and we only had odd bombs where they were after the ammunition places. They did one at Lostock Hall I think it was. Some men were all sat playing cards and a landmine came. They were just sat there and they were dead. Isn’t that awful? They got more bombs than we did. That’s the only one I can recollect at that time. It was a terrible time. You mustn’t leave a light on in your home. You had to keep all your blinds to and we had to have blackout blinds on every window. That was every night. As soon as you heard them coming over you were under the table because we had no huts to go into; they couldn’t give everyone huts so you just hoped for the best. The lady that lived next door to me was a very strong Plymouth Brethren. She said ‘Oh I’m alright, I’m safe in the arms of Jesus.’ I thought, she wouldn’t be if a bomb came down would she? That was her faith of course. But we were lucky in Fulwood in Preston. We were very, very lucky.

We got a lot of evacuees from London. Some of those ladies that came had hair that had turned grey over night, it was so terrible. I couldn’t believe that your hair could turn grey overnight. We had to make the best of it. All the soldiers that were stationed round about and the pilots used to come to all the dances. A lot of them met their husbands in wartime. I met one young man and he came from London. We were going to get engaged but he was called away so quickly. He said ‘I’ll find Preston with my eyes closed when I come back.’ He got shot in the hospital with the Japanese in Bangkok. It was terrible what they did. It was Siam then but it’s Thailand now.

We were on terrible rations. We had to be very careful. We could only have so much butter and so much sugar and you had to queue for it. We went to the Co-op mostly and the little shops on the corner. You went where you could get and you used to stand in queues. Also you had coupons for your clothes and you could only buy so many clothes. If you could sew and make your own it was a really good help. Of course they weren’t very nice, they weren’t very fashionable. I was very fashion conscious at the time - I’d have been coming up to twenty one.

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