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This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Judie Krebs for GMR Action Desk on behalf of Sheila Hewitt with her permission. The author is fully aware of the site's Terms and Conditions.

I was seven when war broke out, but we lived in Northwich so we weren’t evacuated. Grandma took in two evacuees. They were from Liverpool, a bit older than me, but we played together and all got on. I can’t remember their names now.

In the house were Grandma (Edith Emily Vernon), Granddad (Joe Vernon), Auntie Edith, who was about 16 at the time and was working in the office of Broadhurst’s of Gadbrook (in Rudheath, Northwich). It was only a three bedroom council house but there was enough room for everyone. There was enough food for everyone as well – we grew our own veg and we had allotments.

Dad (Fred Bailey) had volunteered for the Merchant Navy – he used to have a horse and cart greengrocery business. No wonder we didn’t go hungry! But he ended up as a prisoner of war, having been captured in Singapore when it was overtaken. His ship was the Empress of Asia and it was firebombed. He spent the rest of the war in the Siam Road camp and in Changi jail where he was in the next cell to the Bishop of Singapore.

I remember the day he came home. I knew he was coming and I went home from school in my dinner hour specially to see him. I just gave him a kiss and went back to school. He told me that six of them were chained up for a week, all together, and had to kneel all the time. He joked that when one wanted to go to the toilet, they all had to go. For a time, he worked in the kitchens. He saw enough there to make him swop most of his food ration for cigarettes.

The sadest thing about the war was that my mother (May) lived all the way through the war, knew my dad was coming home, but died three weeks before he arrived through an asthma attack.

Dad used to cook for us but it was a bit dicey because when he was having a malaria attack, anything he was holding at the time would be thrown up the wall.

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