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This story was submitted to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by Wymondham Learning Centre on behalf of the author who fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

I was seven years old when war began, and an only child. We had been living in Littleport and I arrived with my parents, Stanley and Dorothy Oakley, in Cambridge in 1939, where my father was to take up his post as a Methodist minister.

The war had little effect upon me at all as my father was very understanding and protective. We had no air-raid shelter and we stayed in the kitchen when the sirens sounded. I was not frightened and we would pass the time playing games and drinking tea.

I attended Brunswick school where the head teacher was Miss Forty. The name made me laugh. I was rather naughty and had a mind of my own and when I heard the air-raid sirens, I would leave the premises to be with my family at home. It would take me twenty minutes to walk home.

Two evacuees were billeted with us — I can’t remember their names. They came from London and were very different to us. Of course they talked with a different accent and I had never heard anyone using the expression ‘Cor blimey!’ before. The girls had a very slovenly attitude to washing and dressing and they showed no respect when speaking to my parents, who realised that they could not change them. The evacuees went to a different school to me. In the evenings we would sometimes play cards together.

My cousin, Gwen, came to live with us. Her parents sent her as they ran a boarding house in Clacton-on-Sea and were very busy. I used to call her Gwenny, which she disliked. She worked at the Guildhall in Cambridge as a typist.

When we needed smart outfits, we went to London to shop at C&A. My mother did try to make our clothes last longer by darning holes in socks and jumpers.

I do remember the rubble on Huntingdon Road after a bombing raid.

When peace was declared, the women got together to make food for a street party.

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