大象传媒

Anonymous

I grew up in Earl Shilton and was eleven and a half when the war started. I remember seeing the evacuees standing with their bags, being sorted out.
They were the best years of my life with everyone being together.
There were soldiers billeted here. Americans were staying in the Working Men鈥檚 Club, which is now flats. There were Italians working on the farms.
My Uncle, my mother鈥檚 brother, got killed the day before the war ended.
My mother worked in a shoe factory during the war.
A bomb was dropped in Everards Field. It didn鈥檛 explode at the time, but had to be blown up the day after and left a crater.
We heard the Coventry Blitz. We never went to a shelter, but went under the stairs in our terraced house. We were on rations, which carried on until 1952, and had a bit of this, a bit of that.
Heathfield School had just been built. They thought of turning it into a hospital and we had an extra long holiday, but they didn鈥檛. I went there at 11 years. All the evacuees went there.
My aunt had evacuees to stay with her, and stayed friends with them for many years. Our house wasn鈥檛 big enough for evacuees to stay with us. I was the eldest of 3 sisters.
The Americans were mainly in Hinckley. They gave free dances at the Working Men鈥檚 Club in Earl Shilton and we queued to get in.
I started work at Toones hosiery at 14 years. I was seventeen and a half when the war ended. I just missed out on war work, though I wanted to go.

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