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This story has been added to the People’s War site by Anne Wareing and submitted on behalf of Barbara Cutting and has been added to the site with her permission…

I was 9 when war was declared and living with my grandparents in Sutton-on-Sea Lincolnshire. The day war broke out we had an air raid, it was a false alarm, maybe they were just testing the sirens out, but I remember grandma getting us all under the kitchen table, until the all clear sounded, just in case.

There were coils of barbed wire all over the beach, which stopped us from swimming and one day I had an accident, cutting my leg from top to bottom on the wire, I still bear the scar to this day.

Grandfather had an allotment and grew lots of vegetables and fruit. Although we had plenty of these rationing did affect everyone and I can remember one particular occasion, when a girl in a shop slipped me a bar of chocolate without any coupons. Silly me I couldn’t keep it a secret and the poor girl got into trouble for her act of kindness.

I went to Welwyn when I was about 11 and stayed with a lady in her house, I remember she was entertaining and I was supposed to be helping with the cooking. Rations were short and by mistake I put salt into the wrong pan, I should have put it into the potatoes, I didn’t half get into trouble for it. Unforgivable ruining food when it was on ration. I can also remember being in her garden and seeing the sky full of planes going over, but not realizing that they weren’t ours.

I went to Grammar School and remember getting lost the first time I went, as all the road and street signs had been taken down in case any German parachutists landed, so that they wouldn’t know where they were. We had to go into the air raid shelters at school, with our gas masks on, the lessons continuing in there, but I remember the teacher getting rather cross as everyone kept acting rather silly.

We listened to the radio, William Joyce or Lord Haw Haw with his propaganda, but listening to Churchill inspired us and made us all feel that we wanted to go out and fight Hitler.

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