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We were living in Yardley, Birmingham and my husband George was a free lance observer for planes and also did fire watching. We had twin girls who were a year old at the start of the war so I did not go out to work.
The night that Coventry was bombed we had gone into the Anderson shelter at about 7pm as the planes were coming over and there was loads of bombing. Suddenly there was a terrific thud, and the house two doors down the street had been flattened. We stayed in the shelter until about 5am when my husband eventually got back home. Our French windows had been blown out. Next door was a man Mr Bransby, and his Anderson shelter was water logged, he couldn’t find his helmet, so he put a saucepan on his head!
Both my girls had whooping cough and when they went out in their pram their big gas masks had to come as well.
My parents lived in London and for a long while they slept in the Underground at Clapham Common. They had a cat Timmy who always seemed to know when there was going to be a raid, as he hid behind the curtains, and was always proved to be right! My mother broke her leg and I left my children with a cousin at Small Heath and went to Fulham hospital to visit her, it wasn’t easy to travel. Whilst at the hospital there was a terrible thud — a Buzz bomb had come down and returning on the train I heard that it had been a very bad raid!
Rationing was difficult and hard for the children and we gave up our own food in order that they had sufficient. I remembering queuing for tomatoes, even after the war had ended and if we ever had the chance of getting an orange then there was great excitement.
There was an Inspector living in the road and I remember his daughter telling my daughter ‘My daddy can get anything on the black market’!! Hats were very hard to come by so most women wore head scarves.
I remember the Victory tea with all the tables decorated and everyone helped serve it. My husband, George, pushed out our piano on to the front lawn and a lady was singing, Mrs Riley, and we all joined in. The weather was beautiful and all the children wore fancy dress, Tricia was a Spanish girl, and June a Spanish boy and everyone had a mug.

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