大象传媒

Ruth鈥檚 Story.

Ruth Ince is 84 years old. She was born in 1921 and was 18 when the war started. She lived in Wall terrace, Walkergate when the war started and now lives in Sedgefield Court, Killingworth, North Tyneside. When the news of the war was broadcasted she described this as 鈥渢errible鈥�. She was devastated when she heard the news on the radio. Her two brothers and her husband were all conscripted to work in the war. The only way she kept contact with them was through letters, which she received very rarely. She said that her life was terribly affected by the war she had to work twelve hour shifts compared to before the war began when she didn鈥檛 have to work. When the war ended Ruth was very happy in fact she was ecstatic! Ruth had children during the war and spent a lot of her time looking after them and playing with them.

Ruth thinks that the war still has an affect on her life and that until the day she dies it always will. She will always remember times of the war especially the Sunday when the war broke out. Her husband was away for two years in the war and she missed him terribly.

When things were rationed even clothes were limited. You had to take coupons with you if you wanted to buy anything, when your coupons ran out, that was it for your clothes that month! Most food was rationed Ruth felt as though she was living on toast, foods like sugar, meat, eggs, and fruits were all rationed.

There was an air-raid shelter in Ruth鈥檚 backyard that was for the whole street to use. The air-raid shelter was the size of a tent not big at all.

The first things she grabbed when hearing the siren was her money gasmasks and ration books. Ruth said that she will always remember the day she was at work and there was an air-raid siren going off; she had to run down to the train station. A bomb hit a rail track that night and one of her other brothers was on the train, luckily he was not hurt. When air raid attacks were made, her house was never touched. However, people鈥檚 houses in her street were damaged massively.

A friend of hers was hit by a piece of shrapnel in his eye and unfortunately this triggered his death. The sound of the air-raid siren scared her a lot. However, after a while it became normality. The sirens went of very often at least once a day. During the night she stuck black curtains on her windows, she said that the blackouts were very scary. One day there was a small spot of light coming from inside Ruth鈥檚 house. Within 2 minutes of the blackout starting a warden came to her house banging on the door and saying that if they didn鈥檛 cover up the light they would be imprisoned! Needless to say she quickly covered up the light. She always went out during the blackouts, to work or to the shops. There was not a lot to do at night time, there were some films but that was it. Ruth also said that the blackouts were becoming normality to her as well. Ruth was not evacuated in the war but she had a few friends who were evacuated, they all said that they hated the evacuation and they preferred life at home a lot more even if it meant the possibility of being bombed.

By Chloe Simmister and Zoe Mingoia (Year 9 students at George Stephenson High School, Killingworth).

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