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I was born in 1935, and I was five when the war broke out, my Sister was three. I can remember the War as though it was only yesterday. I can remember my mother lifting us out of our beds and carrying us to the Air Raid Shelter. The Shelter was only a few yards away, it was opposite our Flat and we lived in the tenements in Windsor Gardens.

I remember being evacuated to Rhyl with my mother and sister. We were supposed to be staying at this woman’s house, but when we got there the woman said she had no room for us. My mother didn’t know what to do, it was pouring down with rain, she had me in the pushchair and my sister holding on to the chair because I’ve got Cerebral Palsy and I can’t walk. So she said I will take you to the couple in the cottage over the road, their names were Mr & Mrs Hughes. They took one look at us and they said ‘come in’, and we were there for seven months. They had two children the same age as us, a boy and a girl, David and Emily, and we all played happily together. My sister started school there when she was three.

My father was in the Army at the time, he was in India, Dunkirk and then he was stationed in Carlisle. He was only in Carlisle a few weeks when he got killed by an Army Lorry. It happened off duty in the blackout, we never saw him again. My mother had to bring my sister and I up on her own. She didn’t get much money in those days, she only got three pounds Widow’s Pension to keep the three of us.

I didn’t start school until I was seven, my grandma looked after me while my mother went out to work, she worked in the Kardoma in town, 9.00am until 3.00pm. When the Kardoma closed she went to work in the child welfare on Copperas Hill. During the summer holidays we used to go to Rhyl for a fortnight and stay with Mr & Mrs Hughes. We used to go in July and we used to have some good times there. I left school in 1951, when I was sixteen; my mother had to give up work to look after me. We moved into a Prefab in Belle Vale where my mother, my sister and I lived until 1954 when my mother died. David Hughes still keeps in touch with me now, after 60 years. We still keep in touch by sending Christmas cards and birthday cards, and David has been to see me a few times. He is married with two grown up daughters and is now a Grandad!

Written by Miss E. Latta from the Leonard Cheshire Home where she now lives.

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