大象传媒

A 鈥榮tartling鈥� incident in particular sticks in my mind. One spring evening my mother, my sister and I were returning home from visiting relations through Billinge Hill Woods. We almost tripped over some American soldiers who were lying on the ground in sleeping bags. At the time I didn鈥檛 attach any significance to this. Years later however, I realise that these troops could behave been landed at Burtonwood Aerodrome. There were probably part of the D-Day landing force, awaiting orders to go down to the Channel coast.

In 1939 I was only 5 years old. My first memory of war is of someone coming into my classroom and putting thick brown sticky tape on the windows to stop the glass shattering in a bomb blast. About this time air raid shelters appeared on the recreation ground behind the school (probably used only twice or 3 times) and sand bags were piled up in the front of the council offices. We were also fitted with our gasmasks.

We were very lucky and were virtually unscathed by the war living in S. W. Lancashire; Billinge Hill is part of a midge on the Lancashire plain. It served as a landmark for German Airplanes to turn back after bombing Liverpool. Thus we had a few air raids. One stray bomb was dropped in a field near us. If we had an alert, my parents simply carried the mattress from our beds and put them in the central passage of our bungalow. My Dad was a fire watcher, but he seldom had to go out. He had his own lorry and worked on the Liverpool Blitz, clearing away debris. Sometimes he brought stuff home found in the rubble e.g. a rope doormat. It never occurred to me that someone had lost their home! He also got sweets and slab cake etc (on the black market) from the back streets of Liverpool.

The fighting was far away 鈥� only one incident impressed me. When I was 7 or 8 my teacher came into school excited. She pinned a newspaper cutting up and told us about the breeching of the Ruhr dams (with the paper shortage the walls were bare). The unusual name Guy Penrose Gibson was unforgettable.

鈥楧ig for Victory鈥� was one of many catchphrases. In our garden we kept chickens. I loved to collect the eggs. Mum preserved some in 鈥渋cing glass鈥�. We grew potatoes, vegetables and fruit. Mum bottled fruit in 鈥淜ilner鈥� jars and made jam. In autumn we picked blackberries from which she made 鈥渂ramble jelly鈥�. We gave up our bacon coupons to have half a pig (reared on my uncle鈥檚 farm). Mum worked on Dr. Hugh鈥檚 farm. In October half-term I went potato picking there. I looked forward to being old enough to have extra holiday to help with the potato harvest.

Every year there was a national Saving Drive. We bought our savings stamps/certificate from school. It was a special event 鈥� we had to beat our last year鈥檚 target. There were parades of soldiers (often American) through the streets and people made speeches.

Evacuees came to our village, but I had little to do with them as they were older. Dr. Jim鈥檚 wife had some boys from Birmingham. My sister wrote to boy (when he went back home) from Carshalton Surrey.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Anastasia Travers from WM CSV Action Desk on behalf of Rhoda Rowland and has been added to the site with her permission. Rhoda Rowland fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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