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I thought the war was very exciting really —being a child.

The only thing was inconvenience to us really — you couldn’t go too far away in case there was an air raid, and you had to be careful if you were going out for the day. That was what annoyed us.

I had one half brother who was in the commandoes, he was ten years older than me; but that was the only connection that I knew about of people fighting in the war.

Home life wasn’t really affected in any other way— there were a few shortages but we all grew loads of vegetables and that was our normal way of life at any rate so we didn’t really notice it.

I remember eggs being rationed — my sister did not, and still does not eat eggs, so we had an extra egg from her ration.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Alvin Mansfield and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

See more of Alvin's stories:

• School Shifts
• Just imagine the headlines!
• Underground tunnels
• Keep going, keep going…
• The Evacuation Line
• What an anti-climax!
• In retrospect I was very lucky
• Swaps

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