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This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Elizabeth Perez of Stockport Libraries on behalf of Elizabeth Chapman and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

One cold January morning I set off from home for school, to return that evening to a brand new house in Brinnington Road. This was very exciting. Our new home was a fairly large house with huge windows which let in lots of sunlight. From the back-door we had a glorious view of the Pennine hills, and we were to spend many happy years at this house even though we had moved in at the onset of war.

Amongst many other purchases for the new home were new black-out curtains which somewhat blighted the sunny aspect, but finally we ceased to notice them except when the voice of a prowling air-aid warden rent the night outside: "Put that light out!" Indeed, "Put that light out!" became a catch-phrase of the war years. Outside the back door of the house a bucket of sand stood alongside a stirrup pump. These formed our fire-fighting equipment as the dropping of incendiary bombs became a common occurrence.

Our new garden was quite big and entirely virgin soil. As soon as the winter had finished and the frost had departed from the ground, Dad, who was a keen gardener, got busy digging and planting. The Government was encouraging everyone to grow their own vegetables and fruit in a "Dig for Victory" campaign. We could not look forward any longer to imported produce, as blockades at sea were making themselves felt very severely. Fruits such as lemons, bananas and oranges were to disappear entirely from view until after the war. So by late Spring our back garden sported neat "drills" of peas, beans, lettuce and onions. Dad was particularly pleased that a local farmer, whom he knew, said that the onions were amongst the best he had ever seen!

One not so beautiful sight in one corner of the garden was our new Anderson air-raid shelter. This was made up of curved corrugated iron sections. Instructions were issued by the Government that these shelters had to be fitted fairly deeply and securely in to the earth. Some people managed to make quite habitable places of these shelters, but not all of them were successful. Thankfully, we in the North of England did not suffer as many raids as did the people in the Midlands and London, so we did not use our particular Anderson shelter a great deal.

The war wore on. Food rationing had now become compulsory and Mother, in common with every other British 鈥淢um鈥�, had to cope as best she could with the ever dwindling meat ration, sugar ration, tea ration, cheese ration etc., etc. I honestly do not remember grumbling. You accepted things. If the sugar supply ran out, that was it! You just waited until the next rationing period. The fact that I stayed to lunch at school eased the food rationing burden at home. (In those days not every school served lunch as the majority do today). Mother attended special war-time cookery classes organised by the local Gas Showroom Committee who demonstrated war-time recipes, including such ingredients as dried egg, Spam, (a kind of tinned ham) and other obscure meats. A new word entered the English language from the German 鈥� it was 鈥渆rsatz鈥�. If something was substitute for the real thing, it was termed 鈥渆rsatz鈥�! We got used to seeing a queer kind of fish on the fishmonger鈥檚 slab. It was called 鈥淪noek鈥�! It wasn鈥檛 very popular!

In addition to food being rationed, we began to have clothes-rationing. Everyone was issued with clothing coupons. The Government encouraged us to 鈥渕ake do and mend鈥�, which more often than not meant you had to unpick one garment to make another. I well remember my mother unpicking a white linen skirt she had to make into a pair of tennis-shorts for me! Fortunately, at school everyone managed to keep to the full uniform. Resourcefulness was the keyword!

Luckily for us, Dad was in a reserved occupation. He had a responsible job as Production Manager at Crossley Engines, a well-known engineering factory in Reddish. The factory was going "flat out" producing diesel engines and parts for engines of all kinds; they were working "round the clock". For part of the war Dad had to take on the management of the night-shift, so he began to leave the house at about six-thirty in the evening and return at about seven-thirty the next morning. This meant that Mother and I were left alone in the evenings during the week and we, in common with the rest of the nation at that time, became great radio fans. In the winter months, the nightly black-out tended to make travelling dangerous; there was the ever constant danger of air-raids, so people, as far as they were able, tended to stay indoors in the evenings.

Everyone used to listen to "I.T.M.A.", a famous radio comedy programme called "It's That Man Again", starring a comedian called Tommy Handley. It was a programme of pure nonsense, but it was just what the country needed at that time. It was so light-hearted that it did much to dispel the gloom, which some of the radio bulletins of the war sometimes engendered. Occasionally the .regular programme would suddenly be "blacked out" and a superior voice in a carefully cultivated Oxford accent would announce "Germany calling, Germany calling!" and would then proceed to enumerate various disasters at sea or on land, appertaining to British troop movements. (These announcements were mostly lies). These broadcasts were intended to depress and demoralise the listeners in Britain. They did not! No-one believed what was said. This broadcaster from Germany was known as 鈥淟ord Haw-Haw鈥�, who became something of a figure of fun and ultimately almost an 鈥淚.T.M.A.鈥� character. I always remember going to school the next day after a 鈥淟ord Haw-Haw鈥� broadcast and discussing it in the playground along with the Tommy Handley programme amid roars of laughter!

One evening during the summer months, about an hour after my father had left for the factory, an urgent message arrived at the house for him. It was decided that I had better go to the firm immediately and give him this letter, so I caught a bus and went to the factory. Although Dad had worked nearly all his life, I had never been to the place before. I arrived at the important looking Reception area and explained who I was and whom I wished to see. I was escorted for the first time in my life to the production floor of an engineering factory. What a din, and what a sight! Great machines with cogs whirling and grinding, a huge overhead crane moved ceaselessly backwards and forwards up and down the vast room. Boom! Whee-ee Creak! Grind! What an assault on the ears! Dad was located in an all-glass eyrie-like room at one end overlooking the shop-floor, surround by complicated looking plans, charts, cards and other bewildering-looking papers. I handed over the important letter. When he had read it through, he made a quick 鈥榩hone call and put the letter down on his desk. He waved his arm in the direction of the shop-floor
and grinned! "Well, what do you think of it all!" I told him I thought it was like a vision from Hell! He laughed like anything. He loved engineering and was really keen on his job despite the long hours and pressing war-time schedule. He then took me on a lightning tour of the shop-floor and introduced me briefly to one or two of his colleagues. They were extremely busy. The noise was deafening! I came away deeply impressed with one of my first views of the great world of work!

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