大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the site by the 大象传媒's Peoples War Team in the East Midlands with Juliette Bartons permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

I was five when the war began. I remember being frightened quite often. The sound of aeroplanes going overhead was a major cause, when we were taken into the cellar to shelter. The ack-ack guns on the coast road boomed out when we heard the beat of the German bombers. We always thought we could tell the difference, but I do not know if we were right. Our village was not a target for bombs, but the blast furnaces on Teeside were always a flare to guide the planes along the coast a few miles away, so we felt threatened. Churchills speeches, whilst inspiring, were also scary. The beaches we might have to fight on where only down the street. The beach was closed with barbed wire to prevent an invasion. We could not use it. The fishermen were stopped.

There were army camps at the edge of the village. It was impossible to cross the road when convoys of tanks, lorries, big guns and marching men were going through it.

Our railings were removed, spare saucepans collected and every scrap of paper went to salvage. There were salvage drives. I remember one when the four of us children rode in an army lorry full of paper with a big notice, "ALL FROM ONE HOUSE".

There were four children in our family, one a four month old baby, at the start and five by the end. My Father, unfit because of poor eyesight and in a reserved occupation, a teacher, became an air raid warden, and an entertainer for the troops.

He also "dug for victory" in our big garden, everyone had to dig up flowers and plant vegetables. A lot has been said about food rations by others, but I haven't often heard an important fact about shopping which was that people had to be registered to use a particular shop. We were allowed to have different suppliers for each thing we wanted. Our grocer was Mr Videan, who was father's partner in a comic double act, but we got bacon from Mr Robson, who kept our nearest shop. Mother was very careful and we often had friends who couldn't make their rations last coming for bits. She used cut sweets and fried eggs in half, half as a sweet per child per day, always just after lunch. Children had supplements of rose hip syrup and cod liver oil. We went gathering rose hips to take to a collection point.

When we were at infant school and the siren went we went to the shelter and had singing lessons. A lot of the hymns I know were learnt in the shelter.

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