大象传媒

This story was submitted to the the People's War site by Stoke-on-Trent Libraries on behalf of Val Holland (nee Wood) and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was only five when war broke out but I remember the sirens. I also remember they used to come round and ask us if we'd have airmen round for tea from the Meir aerodrome when they couldn't get home. So my mum always used to have two round on a Sunday. These were British airmen. We had one who had a wife and baby and they came and lived with us for a while. I think they were from down south.

I remember starting school. I wanted a Mickey Mouse gas mask but because I'd started school I had to have an ordinary one. I was upset about that!

My dad made an Anderson shelter in the garden. He dug a deep hole and he put in a concrete floor and drains, a bed and a stove to heat water. The next door neighhbours came into ours because they never put their's up. People were given these shelters. They were delivered. But a lot just didn't put them up. The shelters at school which was called Meir County Modern then, were larger and underground. They looked like humps in a field. There were benches to sit on near the door. There was also an escape hatch in the roof if the main door got blocked.

My dad was in the Home Guard and mum had to go to Swynnerton. She came home covered in yellow powder. That was very traumatic for me. I screamed when I knew she wouldn't be in at night. She said they caught no end of spies at Swynnerton. They spoke perfect English but they still got caught.

Working there made her ill so she went to work on the railways. I was eight when she got pregnant. She then did all the cooking for the other workers at Foley Street in Fenton - a goods yard.

I remember the Americans coming. They threw us chewing gum as they went past. We'd never seen it before and sweets were on ration anyway. We'd say "Got any gum, chum?" and they'd throw packets out to us. Pity I wasn't 17!

With my dad working on the railways, an essential job, he wasn't allowed to join the navy as he wanted. We spent a lot of time in Weston on the Bristol Channel. My mum's sister had a boarding house there. I remember walking round one day and 13 churches were flattened but their altars were still standing.

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