大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War Site by Joan Smith for Three Counties Action on behalf of Mavis Miles, a visitor to the Bedforsdshire County Show on 9th July 2005. The story has been added to the site with the author's permission and she fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
I waas eight years old when the war started and living in Bridgnorth in Shropshire. We only had one air-raid and that was when we think the bombers were on their way back from Coventry. Most of the bombs fell in the river. I can remember that one night when I was woken up and that made me furious, and we all had to huddle under the stairs.

I remember my aunt who lived alone could not have survived on one person's rations - it was very difficult for a single person. We all had to help her. She was very afraid when the German U-boats were sinking our ships - she said that they were going to starve us out, and my mother tried to comfort her. My mother's sister who had a large family - seven children - always seemed to have food to spare. You were only allowed two ounces of butter a week, but we had a lot of margarine which I didn't like. We were all slim - it was a healthy diet, and the school meals were good. Before the war I used to be able to get an icecream on the way home from school, and I remember it first re-appearing after the war.

We had black-out curtains at all the windows made of special material, hung against the window behind the other curtains. I can remember the air-raid warden shouting: 'Put that light out!'.
At night you had to put a shade over your torch to deflect the light down.

We had evacuees at our school, and sometimes they were teased. Convoys of armoured cars and lorries filled with American troops would pass through, and they would throw us sweets and chewing-gum. On one particular day the convoy was very long, and this we later knew was the preparation for D-Day.

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