大象传媒

This story as submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Colin Offord from Hadlow Library and has been added to the website on behalf of Rita Woodley with her permission and they fully understand the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was in my 20's during the war years and living in 2nd/3rd floor flat in Meteor Street, Battersea, London with my young baby Pamela. My husband was in the Royal Artillary and was stationed in Plymouth before being posted to Burma, so there i was holding the baby and coping with London life. I remember the air raids that took place, except for Christmas and Boxing day when they gave us a bit of peace and quiet and a good nights sleep. There was a brick shelter in our road which was more solid than the Anderson and Morrison shelters, but i preferred to go to the shelters on Clapham Common and we would stay the night there - but i only had a deck chair which was not that comfortable for me, but the baby could stay in the pram.

Pamela was such a good sleeper that i would often take her out and play the piano and accordian in pubs in the surrounding area. That helped me with my finances because there were a couple of times when i had to pawn my engagement ring - it went in on a Monday and was back out on the Friday when i got the Army pay at the Post Office.

I remember the frustrations of queuing for food. Every Saturday, Marks and Spencers in Battersea would be selling a few cakes and i would be in the queue at 08.30 to try and get my 1 cake. It made your day when you got a Saturday cake but there was often the frustration of getting to the front of the queue and the last cake was gone. But there was no punch-up's like there would be today, everyone just took it in their stride and waited until next week to try again.

It helped with the rationing in the fact that i had a baby because this enabled me to get a ration of 2 oz bacon, 1 egg and tea - but obviously some of the babies weren't up to eating these yet.

It was funny how word quickly got around about food at a particular store, and we would quickly rush round there to try and get some extra food. No bananas, No oranges, but there was occasionally some apples. We were very healthy then and we didn't waste anything - a bit of spare bread would get used in bread pudding.

I went to the pictures one time in Chelsea to see a Stewart Granger film and there he was in person, so i asked him for his autograph and duly gave him my pen - he gave me the autograph but didn't return my pen!

My husband Victor used to visit us from Plymouth but Pamela didn't get to meet her Dad until after the War had ended when he returned from Burma. Pamela was a bit jealous for a few weeks because she had just had her Mum for those war years, but she soon realised that Dad would now be around much more. After the War, Victor returned to his job as a brick layer and was kept very busy with work.

Apart from the Air raids and rationing, i think everyone enjoyed the war - little things gave you so much pleasure.

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