大象传媒

My Grandma鈥檚 maiden name was Sheila Bridges, and she was born in 1930; she was nine when the war started. She lived in Sheffield, in the industrial part, which was one of the areas targeted by the Nazis.

The adults decided that the children needed to be taught at a few selected homes, so that if the schools were bombed they wouldn鈥檛 be killed. This was at the time called home-servicing. My grandma鈥檚 house was picked, and so she remembers how there were lots of children, of different ages, in her house every day. She also remembers how embarrassed she was when she entered a room full of the older children, as she would forget they were there, and just be walking around as she usually would.

Another memory she has is of when the sirens went off. She says how after a while, you could tell the English and German planes apart, from the sound of them. She can remember her mother calling her to run down the stairs as quickly as she could, and then to quickly get into the shelter. They were very small, and though there were beds, no one was ever able to sleep. She also joked that she can remember hoping that the sirens would go off on particular nights, so that she could finish her knitting. She in fact was very good at knitting, and even made clothes for the Army. She remembers how the shelters smelt funny as they were 6 ft down, and she said it was almost as if they were graves. In the mornings after, she can remember going around seeing what had happened during the war, and collecting shards of the bombs, which she kept for a while, but unfortunately got rid of.

The motto for clothes was 鈥淢ake Do And Mend鈥�, which basically meant that all clothes could easily be fixed with patches. People were even applauded and appraised on the number of patches they had.

A memory she had that was very clear was about the rationing. There was just one small grocery shop in the area, and you could always tell if there was going to be a special kind of food if there was a big queue outside. One day, her mother saw the queue, and quickly made her run to join the line. The food that had been brought to the shop was tinned salmon, or pineapple. My grandma can remember being scared about having to ask for the food, and she ended up getting the salmon. The rationing started almost straight after the war, and didn鈥檛 end until 1953, after my grandma had married.
She feels that her childhood and teenage years were stolen. She never got to do all the normal things that she should have been allowed to do.

A sad memory she had, was of a friend of her mothers moving away. He was quite rich, and managed to move away to the countryside with his family, so as to get away from the war. However, the bombers sometimes dropped the unused bombs in the middle of nowhere, and his house was hit, killing all the family.

The thing that gave her hope during the war was Winston Churchill. She says how his speeches filled her with hope, pride and determination. She remembers his voice being powerful, and certain, and him reassuring the country that they would not surrender.

My grandma feels disappointed that there are still wars, and all the news reports just bring back the memories. She also said how she emphasises with countries such as Iraq when she sees the devastation caused there. She especially hates bonfire night- the fireworks sound just like the whistling of the bombs.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.