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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Catherine S.Cocker,daughter of May Skilling and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

This article was written by my mother May Skilling during the time she worked for Shell/BP in Wythenshawe,Manchester.She joined the company at age 50 years and worked as a clerk until she retired. During this time she was asked to write of her war experiences for the company magazine and was written in four parts. She has now reviewed the four parts and collated them as one. I hope this is of interest. Catherine S. Cocker.

Family At War- Memories of a Manchester girl.

I was not quite 20 years old and we were holding our daughter's first birthday party in September 1939, when my husband John had announced that he had joined the Army and had collected the princely sum of 7s 6d.I was upset, more so, because I was a month pregnant with our second baby. However off he went to fight for King and Country and i didn't see him again until our son was a month old. Meantime, John and several thousand others were fighting a rear guard action in France.

We never really felt part of the war here in England, although we had lost all our garden railings and iron pans towards munitions and there were incessant air raid warning sirens and constant practices with our gas masks.

I don't think we fully realised the full horrors of war. At least, I didn't,until one Saturday morning in June 1940, when I received a telegram from the War Office telling me that my "Husband was missing, presumed killed".
I was inconsolable. He hadn't even seen his son!
My sister sent me off to bed and as I was undressed, a knock came to the door and there he was - my soldier back from France to see his son!

It appears everything was in chaos as the troops reached England. After days of waiting on the beaches of Dunkirk, the terrered remnants were despatched to different towns. John was sent to Leeds and it was easy to hitchhike a lift from there and he re-united with his family and introduced to his new son, Robert.

As a family we were only together on periods of leave and short weekends. A song had become popular "Leave me something to remember you by" and John did, because during one of our meetings I became pregnant with my third child,. John went away, this time to join Monty in the Middle East. It was a lonely time but everyone kept saying that the war couln't possibly last as long as World War One.

I was evacuated to Blackpool to have my baby. The hotels were occupied either by the RAF or expectant mothers. All the children were put into a holiday home at Lytham St. Annes and we could visit them everyday as we wished.
As each mother was due to have her baby, the rest of us would take her sweets and play with her children. This meant none of them were lonely. It was a happy arrangement.

A funny incident occurred at Christmas 1942. A group of us mums decided to visit the local pub to celebrate and I remember we all sat around the table 'lumps' well hidden, when a group of Air Force men came in and sat at the next table.

We were all lonely and homesick and sat chattering with them. The drinks started flowing and we were all enjoying each others company. However, as the ladies well know, expenctant mothers need to pay frequent 'visits' and we were all bursting, but somehoe afraid to reveal our conditions in case it spoilt the good time we were having.

It was finally resolved that we all stood up en mass and made for the little room. You should have seen our friend's faces - and ours were pretty red too! Anyway, all ended well, the RAF enjoyed our company and escorted us back to our hotel; it made for a better Christmas.

When my turn came to enter the nursing home, I told Catherine and Robert, now aged four and a half and two, that the next time I saw them we would have a new baby and in the early hours of February 4th 1943 I gave birth to young May.

I wrote to John telling him he had another daughter, but our letters crossed and I recieved one from him telling me he was in hospital and had a knee wound from the battle of Alamein but that he was alright and not to worry. He was happier with my news than I was with his.

Many of our war Mothers will remember that after the birth of our children we were confined to our beds until the twelfth day and allowed home on the fourteenth day. My first stop on my homeward journey from Blackpool was to return to the hotel to which I had been evacuated and leave young May for all the other 'mothers in waiting' to admire whilst I went to collect Catherine and Robert from the holiday home.

One of my sisters came to help me back home to Manchester. We had been allocated a special travel warrant to travel by the Railway. The train was crowded because of troop movement and although i got a seat it was standing room only for my sister and many others. It was a hectic day, but we arrived home safely where my mother was waiting to greet her fifth grandchild.

The War dragged on, food rationing, clothing coupons, cigarettes under the counter and of course air raids- when would those sirens stop?

The only thing that I worried about was which of my children i should carry first into the Air Raid Shelter. My first born - my son- or the daughter my husband had never seen?

I wrote to John about my fear and he replied ''God will see us through just do what you think is right.'' I solved the problem by taking all three children after tea each night, plus blankets and pillows to the District Bank on Wilmslow Road. The vaults were always open each night and during air raids, and although it wasn't exactly the Ritz at least we were together.

I never slept, because there would always be a budding or would be 'Bing Crosby' or someone playing a harmonica and after the pubs closed people would flock in doing their war effort by singing songs like 'we're going to hang out the washing on the siegfried line'or 'run rabbit run' and naturally 'Roll out the barrel'. Despite the distrubed nights, people still had to report to work each morning, tired, exhausted or just suffering from hangovers.

But all things, even bad things, come to an end in time.

Gas masks played a great part in our lives, we had to walk everywhere with them slung over our shoulders. The younger children were coloured and nick named Mickey Mouse masks, but for babies we were issued with helmets, which were 1 by 1.5 yards yards in size similar to the front visor on a motorcyle. The babies were put inside and the canvas covering tied at the waist. We then had to pump air in through a window the action was something like playing an accordion.

They could not be carried about and as I had two babies I had an arrangement with a good neighbour that, should the gas whistle be blown shw would come and help me. Thank god that was not necessary.

We developed the habit of queuing for everything-the only good thing I think that we learned from the war. Also expectant mothers were allowed to go to the head of the queues- something i would like to see again today.

All our letters to our men folk were written on forms similar to our telex pads, which were issued by the Post Office and they were recieved (often censored) reduced in size to 4 x 4 inches.

The war with Germany ended and the great day came when John was demobbed. I recieved a telegram that he was on his way home- oh the excitement and tears, the scrubbing through of the house, the polishing and dusting that went on that Saturday in December in 1945!

It was about 11pm when he knocked at the door- we looked at each other, it was a strange feeling, and even stranger when i said ''hello, are you coming in''. ''I sure am''was his reply. We both went upstairs to the children. Catherine and Robert were jumping up and down with the excitement. They had their daddy home at last.

May, now almost three years old, was standing in her cot bewildered by it all, but on a nudge from me John said ''and who's this?'' She looked at him for a minute and replied ''I'm baby May''- he lifted her into his arms and all was happiness. Our family was complete after 6 long years. It was the end of the war for us.

May Skilling

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