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"This story was submitted to the site by the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Peoples War Team, in partnership with Derwent Community Team and The Da Vinci School in the East Midlands with Peter Howard Sanbrooks Permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

This story is extracted from an interview conducted by the pupils from the Da Vinci School in Derby.

I was born in 1933. Believe it or not, most of us had a great time. We had more to eat during the war as prior to that there had been a depression and everyone was living on the breadline — that means that nobody had anything to eat. Ricketts and Ring worm were common in children. I went to school and sometimes the children had nothing to wear on their feet at all. It was a hard time, then when the war started, money was released [by the government] and borrowed to keep the nation going.

We lived in suburban Manchester, near the searchlights and flashlights that lit up the sky which were looking for aircrafts. Then, there were balloon companies who put balloons in the sky to stop the aircraft from flying into anything, and then there were the artillery bashers who tried to shoot the aircrafts down. So, there was a lot of noise and confusion. One bomb would be hard to determine over guns and other noise.. You did have to wear a hat, but you always had to carry one with you. I never used it, we used to put it on and crawl like pigs grunting.

I wasn’t old enough to fight. I ran errands for the air raid warden. We used to carry a bell and if they could see a light at the window they used to shout at you or make you cover over the window. We had a land mine which landed quite near to us. The food was poor quality and not enough of it. You could hear the guns from our window; it was like a firework display.

I was sent to the Isle of Man in 1940. Shipping across from Princess Dock to the Isle of Man was difficult. There was something called the black market, and the ration books was causing it. Some people had enough money but not enough rations, and visa versa. Those with ration books used to sell them for money. I never saw a banana until I was a teenager. We never had sweet as kids, that it why we still have our teeth now.

I remember boarding the ship at princess dock in Liverpool. The ship used to wait until there was a rough sea, I cant remember how we reached the Liverpool Dock, but it wasn’t very far from Manchester. My brother and I was put onto the ship to the Isle of Man. There was something called a compulsory work order you entered into. You either went into services went down the pits or girls went into the land army. In addition, there were exempted jobs like bus drivers, anything necessary for national development.

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