大象传媒

This story was submitted by to the People's War website by Irene Harkins of Coventry and Warks CSV Action Desk on behalf of Martin Robinson. The author fully understands the website's conditions.

I was a small child during the war, being born in December 1941 in the little town of Marple, near Stockport in Cheshire. My very earliest memory is of sitting in a pram outside the Co-op in MArket Street and seeing a tank on a low-loader going down Stockport Road. German planes occasionally jettisoned bombs on their way back from raids on Manchester and my two brothers and I usually slept in bunk beds in the cellar. The memory of rationing and wartime cooking is very clear, with dried potato and eggs, and coupons for sugar, butter, meat, sweets, tobacco and clothing. One of the legacies of wartime is the tendency to save string, brown paper bags, jam jars and othr useful things, and another is the slight but persistent feeling of guilt associated with butter sugar and sweets.One of my brothers had pneumonia and the doctor said a few oranges would do him good - but oranges made only rare appearances 'under the counter' at the grocer's. My first meeting with a banana made a great if puzzling impression, and I believe I tried to eat it from the side with the skin still on ! My father, who was an insurance inspector and aged 38 when I was born was in the Home Guard, and told me that there was trouble if the platoon wasn't dismissed well before closing time in front of the Crown Inn at Hawk Green.

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