大象传媒

This Story was submitted to the People's War site by Deb Roach of the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf
of Vivien Seville and has been added to the site with his/her
permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.I was born in 1939--hence the name after the actress!

I was child during the war. I remember when the Manchester blitz was taking place. My mother took me from my bed, and sheltered me in the pantry since we didn't have a shelter. My father was called up when I was 3 and 1/2 the Fleet Air Arm. (We went to visit the Fleet Air Arm Museum in somerset just three days ago.
My husband was in the Fleet Air Arm as well-my now husband was called up at the age of 19.)

I was living in a Terraced house, just me an my mother. Lots of extended family in the area.

There were houses in the area that were bombed, and some families killed in my town, but we were lucky and weren't hit. Since our town was 7 miles away from Manchester, we did get hit some.

I went to school at 4, and had a gas mask in a little box. I had to take that to school every day. There were air raid shelters at the school. We had a drill, as a practice and taken to the air raid shelter so we would know what to do during a real raid. I missed my father very much, I remember him coming home on leave--I ran the whole length of the platform and saw him at the end of the station.

My father trained at several domestic bases. He first went to Skegness. At one time he was stationed in Scotland, and I remember train journeys when I was very young. The trains were packed with lots of servicemen. We stayed in Scotland just to have the chance to see my father.

Another time, my father was stationed in Wiltshire, and we went down and stayed in Melksham, near the air station.

Each time we just spent a few days to see my father. He was then sent to Gibralter and trained as an electrician for the aircraft. We didn't see him for at least 3 years until he was demobilised after the war--at which time I was 7. It was great when he came back--made a huge difference to our lives. My father resumed his civilian life, and things got back to normal.

I remember the food shortages--my mother made all sorts of strange recipes to make ends meet. Cake recipes that didn't require eggs. I liked the dried eggs. I remember my mother having to queue for vegetables. The first time I had a banana was after the war--I had never even seen one before. I'd never seen a lemon until a neighbor of ours had some, and her son had one. We thought it was like an orange--I cut my hand with the knife, and the lemon juice got into the wound. I remember crying all the way home. Mom rinsed it under the tap and bandaged it up--didn't go to hospital in those days for that sort of thing. It's fine now.

We used to go the cinema a lot. She would meet me after school with a sandwich and a drink. Get straight on a bus and go to the cinema. We went at least twice a week.

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