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This story has been entered onto the site by Samantha and Jenny on behalf of Olive Bulman and she fully understands the conditions.

Olive Bulman was 8 years old when the war started, and 14 years old when the war ended. During those six years, she experienced many memorable things, including evacuees staying with her, and bombs falling nearby.

Olive lived in Aspatria, (near Carlisle) and had two evacuees staying with her; Austin and Bobby Marks. They were brothers. Austin, 5 was the youngest boy, and Bobby was the eldest boy, who was 7 years old when they arrived. Olive鈥檚 dad had to go out into the street and choose which evacuees he wanted to look after for the duration of the war. He chose these two brothers. At first Austin wouldn鈥檛 speak at first, and only stayed with the family for one day. After that, he went to stay with Olive鈥檚 Auntie Elsie. Bobby stayed for two years. Austin stayed at his new 鈥渉ome鈥� throughout the rest of the year.
There were many evacuees and they all had to go to school, but not the same school as the rest of the children who had lived there all their lives in Cumbria. They went to the church which was transformed into a school for Catholics (the evacuees).
Olive鈥檚 friends did not have any evacuees staying with them, and she can鈥檛 remember any female evacuees staying anywhere near her in Aspatria.

In Silloth, one bomb fell and left a big crater in the ground. This crater left a very big mess in Silloth. This crater was bigger than the size of a house. Also, in the war you were allowed pets. Olive鈥檚 grandma had a parrot in her house, and Olive kept a dog. Even though animals were hard to look after as food was hard to get hold of since it had to be imported from foreign countries which was hard to do because of warships.

The war was a very memorable experience for many and they won鈥檛 forget the events that happened during those six years.

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