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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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World War 2 family project

by Romsey Community School, Hampshire

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Archive List > Childhood and Evacuation

Contributed by听
Romsey Community School, Hampshire
People in story:听
Mrs Betty Skinner
Location of story:听
Cambridgeshire, london, bedford
Background to story:听
Civilian Force
Article ID:听
A2821970
Contributed on:听
09 July 2004

We interviewed a women called Betty who was at the age of 19 when the war started. Her job at the time was working on a farm, she was stationed with the Americans so she was moved from camp to camp and lived in many different places, but she was originally from Cambridgeshire. By the end of the war, she was married and living in London.
A particular aspect of the war tht she liked to talk about was when she was stationed with the Americans, she said that it was quite good fun because there were loads of handsome soldiers about, also because of the fact she was young and could flirt a lot with them. As she was in The Nafia and The Marines she did not get rations, she had seen children getting evacuated, she said it was very upsetting seeing children being separated from their mums who were crying for them to come back. She didn't evacuated because of her age. She remembered the shelters as being cold and dark, as she was on the camps she went to a big shelter underground.
Bombing raids she was really scared of, when she was married she moved to London that was a regular target. She remembered the sirens getting closer, which scared her the most; also, she said that it was very annoying. she had a very worrying experience with the blackouts, once she came out of the cinema a soldier shouted out "friend or foe?!" she said to us that she froze immediately, she then heard the sound of a rifle loading.
Her job with the armed forces was a general assisstant, she was stationed with the Americans, and at one place she stayed for a year. Mrs Skinner was not well informed about Dunkirk, The Battle of Britain or The D-Day Landings. The most difficult things she said she had to deal with was leaving her mother. She also said she got homesick at times. During the war she lost her brother in India who was shot down by enemy aircraft. She also lost three of her cousins in a plane crash and tank fires.
The lucky escape that she said she had was not getting bombed and surviving the whole of The Second World War. Her most frightning experience was when the local town which was Bedford

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