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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Matthew Smaldon on behalf of Sylvia Morton and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Morton fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

'On the morning of Sunday, the 3rd September 1939, my sister and I were making the beds, and my mum was in the kitchen, listening to the radio at our house at Brunswick Road, in Cattedown. She came upstairs and told us that the war had started.
Well, to us, we didn’t know what it meant. I mean, I was only 16 or 17. You don’t think about blackouts, and shortages of food then.

I went to work in the Dockyard, as a clerical assistant in the Superintendent Naval Stores Offices, working in the South Yard. I’d only been there a matter of weeks there was a big raid. We should have left work at 6 o’clock, but the raid started about 5, and it went on and on, until midnight. We were still in the shelter at the Dockyard, when I overheard someone say ‘All Cattedown is on fire’. Well, I thought, that’s where I live — what will I find, you know? The manager came around, and he said that as there was a lull, they would arrange for Dockyard lorries to take us all home. He said that the boss in charge of us should be seeing everyone home to their front door. Everybody was being dropped off as instructed, until we got up to Efford. There, we parked in this country lane, and behind the hedge there were these big huge antiaircraft guns at Efford Fort. They were firing away, and every time there was a flash, you could see the soldiers loading them. Every time they fired, it really shook the lorry we were in. We stopped there a while, and then we carried on down to Greenbank and St Judes. I was the only person left, and the boss, he lived in Knighton Road, St Judes, said to the driver, drop me off here, and take her on to Cattedown. He was meant to make sure I got home, but he saw to himself first. The lorry driver dropped me at the corner of Cattedown, and I had further to go, to get to Brunswick Road. I wasn’t sure about craters, because it was pitch black. The only lights were from the incendiary bombs, and you could hear them, like bottles breaking. You didn’t know whether you were going to be hit or not. I managed to run home, and got there just as my Mum was coming out of the gate, looking up the road to see if I was there. I could see all Cattedown was lit up, because of the oil tanks on fire. When they went up, you can imagine what it was like. That part of the sky was wholly lit up.

Because it was hit in the bombing, they moved our office to another part of the South Yard, which was like a prefabricated building. After that they moved us to what we called the Gun Wharf, which is Maurice Square. We had our offices in the Superintendents and the Admiral’s House. Very old houses. In our office one of the rooms had a huge bath, with a wooden top — we used to keep our files in it. There was a tiny coal fire, and about three desks. Then we moved to in the main room, and that faced out onto the sea. We used to see the boats go up into the Dockyard. Especially in the summer, as we had the windows wide open, we would see the ships coming up, and some of them were quiet badly damaged. You would say ‘Oh my gosh, that one’s had a bad hit’. And you’d see some of them going up flying paying off pennants, which were big long flags, to show all the crew were going.

I lived in 10 Brunswick Road, and when Cattedown was bombed, one of the houses that was demolished was number 11, which was opposite us. The lady who lived there was going away, and her house was empty. So she invited these two old ladies to stay there. She asked Mum to keep an eye on them and asked when there’s a raid, can you make sure they go under the stairs to shelter. We had a brick shelter, and my father was crippled. It was such an effort for my mum to get him down to the shelter. You practically went to bed dressed. This particular night, the raid went on for hours and hours, and my Mum said, ‘I’d better go over and see how the old ladies are.’ She went over the road, and they were alright, but as she was talking to them she had the most terrible pains in her stomach. So she explained and said that she had better go home, and as she went out the door, a bomb dropped on that house. The gust of the bomb blew her into our house, through the front door, part way up the stairs. We didn’t know that this had happened. We knew this bomb had dropped, and of course Mum was over there, so we were panicking. But she was alright, she wasn’t hurt, but she was very very shaken. The two old ladies died you see. It was lucky Mum left when she did.

So of course, our house now was damaged as well, and we had to find somewhere else to live. So we went to my Aunt Nell and Uncle Charlie’s house. They’d moved up to Paignton, so we moved to 18 Salisbury Terrace in Stoke. I remember when we lived here, getting up every night. You’d just gone to sleep and the blimmin siren would go off. And you’d think ‘Oh I don’t want to get up’ and you’d stay in bed and my mum would say ‘Come on get up, quick. There’s raids.’ So it was ‘Yeah, alright, I’m getting up’ but you’d just want to sleep, as you were so exhausted from being up every night, you’d practically fall asleep at work. My Aunt Grace lived in the first house in St. John’s Street, a little street between St John’s Church and the First and Last pub. Her house was bombed. She was 80, and she had very dark hair. When they dug her out, her head was cut and they had to shave her hair, and when it grew back it was just as dark. During another raid, this landmine dropped on Dr Bradley’s house, which was other side of the road to ours in Stoke. The blast badly damaged our house. When a landmine comes down, you don’t hear it. It just comes down by parachute, then ‘Wuff!’ A bomb, you hear the whistle, but a landmine is much bigger than a bomb, and silent. I remember an incendiary landed on our roof as well, and my mum managed to get a ladder, and the Home Guard or whoever came and they managed to put the fire out. The roof wasn’t completely burnt, but all the slates were gone, and the doors were smashed and blown off because of the landmine. We had tape across all the windows, but it didn’t do any good. The house was so damaged you couldn’t live in it, so we had to move again, and we went to Ridgepark Avenue.

Before we were bombed out of Salisbury Terrace, my sister got married. The wedding was on March 22nd 1941, and I was her bridesmaid. The night before, there was the most terrific raid on Plymouth. She was due to be married in the registry office, and a taxi was going to come to take us there. When we looked out in the morning, we saw that all the roads were up, so no taxis were going to be able to get through. So we walked down to Milehouse, over all the rubble. I was carrying the lucky horseshoe for my sister. We got as near as we could to the registry office on a bus from Milehouse, and then we had to walk the rest of the way. Everything was rubble, or burning. You didn’t know what you were walking on. And by now, I’d dropped the horseshoe somewhere too. We got to the registry building and the registrar comes out and says ‘I’m very sorry, but I can’t marry you here — it has all been bombed.’ But then he said he could marry them on the steps instead. And that’s what he did. They were married on the steps of the destroyed registry office, with all the rubble around them. My sister was wearing a beautiful petrol-blue shot silk dress, with a square neck, puffed sleeves and a cummerbund. I think my Aunty made it. I was wearing a dark royal blue dress, and a navy hat — very smart. It was difficult to get flowers for the corsage, so my Aunt Edie went down to the market and bought a couple of pink carnations and some carrots. She made a posy out of the carrot tops, so they looked like ferns!

I remember one of the early raids when they hit Hooe, Oreston and all around that area. One of the girls I worked with, she lived in Hooe, and she got killed. I worked with a lot of men, and they were elderly some of them, and very often they’d get a telegram — their son was missing. Some of the boys I worked with, they were called up, but not all of them. And then you’d hear ‘So-and-so’s missing.’ Whether they were safe we don’t know. But a lot of my friends got killed.

Then one day, I get this phone call at work, and it was my brother-in-law Jim. My sister hadn’t seen her husband for ages, and I knew the ships were coming in, but I didn’t tell her, because we weren’t allowed to say anything. He was on HMS Goodson, and he was the coxswain. He asked if I could come down to the dockyard in Albert Road, as he had some things for my sister. So I asked my boss if I could go, and he said yes, but take another girl with you. So we both went down, and he gave us a couple of eggs, and a few other things we couldn’t get hold of, to pass to my sister. I will always remember the last thing he said to me was ‘The next time you hear from me I’ll be in Stalag number 11’. Of course he wasn’t allowed to go on shore.
I was doing clerical work for the ships, sorting out the stores. Not consumables, it was more or less nails and screws. Not the victualling yards bit. Jim was doing the same, storing food and things, but he was on the ships. One day, he asked me,
‘I wonder if you can do me a favour? Have a look and see if you could complete these forms.’ It was all this stuff he’d never had time to do, and he was getting in trouble because he hadn’t done it. I suppose he was too busy or something. And I said ‘Is it the same as I’m doing in the office?’ And it was exactly the same, so I was able to help him. He said I’d got him out of trouble with that! It was a great sheaf of papers that I had to go through, with figures and all sorts.

People used to go out onto the moors to get away from the raids. My husband’s uncle used to drive a lorry, and he’d go round and collect his family and take them up to the moors when the raids were on. We never went ourselves - we didn’t have anyone to take us, and we couldn’t get my dad out there.

There was ever such a lot of black market in Plymouth. I remember when we lived at Ridgepark Avenue, I was at the bus stop, and it was outside the butchers. A lady went in and said ‘Can I have some whitewash?’ and the butcher gave her a tub of cream. Very often people would offer you butter or something. And you’d be grateful for it, especially if there was a wedding or something. I was friendly with an American sailor who used to come into our office — they all used to come into our office to get their sheets signed to obtain stores, and you’d get to know them, and they’d bring you chewing gum and cigarettes, which pleased my Dad. I only knew him a couple of months, and we used to go to the naval and Civil Service dances. The whole ship would be invited. The dances would be in the Continental Hotel. He used to drive a jeep, and when he was leaving he went to see my Mum so say goodbye, he took down some tins of fruit. One of them was a tin of guava pieces. Well, we’d never heard of guava. And it was horrible.

They had a German prisoner of war camp in Central Park, and one Christmas Jim brought two of them home. My sister and me were both pregnant, so I don’t know what these two prisoners of war must have thought! Then on Boxing Day my sister had to give birth, so they were sent back to the camp. They were nice lads from what I can remember.

They would have the Army or Marines band up on the Hoe. We all used to go dancing there. Before the war we used to go up to the Mikado Café in Saltash Street. In the back was a dancing school, Charles-someones dancing school. I used to go up to the Hoe, and you’d see someone you knew and they’d say we’ve got tickets to a dance at Abbey Hall, for 6 pence, and you’d go the next week. My sister went to the Paramount down Union Street, but I never went there. I used to go to the Pier off the Hoe too, before it was bombed - we learnt most of our dancing down there. I remember my Mum got locked in the Pier when she was courting with my Dad, and they had to climb out over the gate! But it has gone now, it was bombed and destroyed too.'

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