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MEMORIES FROM THE SCAWSBY DAY CENTRE

Anne Lomax

I had just left school at 14 when the war started so I stayed at home with my mother and helped her in the home because all the men in my family worked down the pit - Joe, John, Bob and Dad and another brother in the army. I can remember going shopping everyday for the family. I used to queue for an hour for a cake or half a dozen buns - that’s all they’d let you have. Wherever there was a queue I used to ask ‘What are you queuing for?’ and if it were something we needed I’d join the queue.

I can remember joining one queue for blankets those cream ones with blue stripes along the top and my mother was really pleased with me when I fetched them home because they were hard to come by. That night when the men came home there was no food on the table but there were blankets on the beds! In 1943 I was 18 and I should have gone to work in a factory or on the land or joined up. I had to go with my Mother to a committee meeting at Percy Jackson Grammar School where I was interviewed and they decided I could stay at home with my mother because of all the work in the home while all the men were in the pit.

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