大象传媒

I am Claire Hill aged ten and I interviewed my great granny, Sarah Carmichael, about her memories of WWII. Great Granny was 19 years old when war was declared.
This is what she told me:

What were you doing during the war?
At the beginning I was working at home until I got married in 1943. We lived at Ballyleagry, near Limavady, beside the railway. Your great great grandfather was a railway man and was quite well paid for those days at 拢2 per week.
The war meant that food was in short supply and we had to grow as much of our own food as possible. We grew potatoes and vegetables, we had our own milk from the cow and we killed chickens and sometimes a pig, although we were not supposed to. We had to melt down the fat from the pig which we then used as cooking lard. I didn鈥檛 see a banana for eleven years; it was 1950 before they came back. There was very little fruit of any kind apart from what we grew. Things were scarce and had to be rationed. People on farms were better fed than townspeople because we had the means to grow our own.
What was rationing?
Rationing was a way of sharing out the goods from shops. You had to give the shop owner a coupon for every ration you were entitled to. Every person got 2oz butter, lard, margarine, bacon, cheese and tea per week. Every month our family got a lOst bag of flour to bake bread. We had our own hens for eggs but we also got a ration of dried eggs, which weren鈥檛 too bad to eat. Material and clothes were also rationed and we had to save up our coupons if we wanted to get something new. Sugar was in short supply but farmers got a 鈥渉arvest ration鈥� which was to be used to make jam. We very rarely got sweets and when we did they were halved and shared out. I felt guilty eating a whole chocolate bar for years and years later
What was the blackout like?
We had to hang up blackout curtains, these were made from a heavy material that didn鈥檛 let any light through. We hung up ours from a heavy thread or a light rope as we didn鈥檛 have any special poles to hang them from. No light at all was allowed to be seen from the outside. Street lights were just a little glow to let you see where you were going while the shops were open. We had carbine lights on our bicycles. Carbine was like little pieces of coal only blue in colour. These lamps had to be well shaded when out at night, so that in the end we could only see the front wheel of our bikes.
Did you see any soldiers
Soldiers used the railway embankment near where we lived as a practice trench, and when they were out on practice they were billeted in our sheds, so we saw lots of soldiers. They often had white marks on their clothes from the fake ammo they used to show who was shot. Sometimes they stole eggs from our hens, they seemed to be quite hungry. We had wool which we were to knit socks with for the soldiers.
There were American and Australian soldiers as well. The Americans were mostly stationed at Ballykelly airdrome and the Australians were out at Aghanloo airdrome. The Australians couldn鈥檛 understand why so many places were called Bally, like Ballykelly, Ballyleagry, Ballymoney or Ballymena. Bally is supposed to mean 鈥渢he son of鈥�.
Did any planes ever fly overhead
We used to see planes coming home from raids in the mornings. They usually came in in formation. We got used to seeing them and never thought anything of it. The fighter planes were smaller and had a different sound than the bombers. The bombers had more propellers and were louder. One September we heard a different type of plane, we thought it had to be a German plane, we could hear it following the mountain range, and was told afterwards that the target had been the dam, now known as Banagher Dam.

Belfast was bombed quite a bit. Jim White, who was the local blacksmith, lost his sister and her family. Their street in Belfast was bombed and they were all killed. Children from the big towns were evacuated out to the country.
Did any evacuees come to your house
Yes, we had two who lived with us. In actual fact I was one of the people who had the job of allocating evacuees to houses in the area. We had a list of names and
addresses and how many rooms they had to spare. We went around matching children to houses. Their poor mothers broke their hearts, but they were allowed to come to visit once a month. After a while quite a few went home again.
Did any of your friends or relations go to war?
Lots of my friends went off to the war, both boys and girls, they joined the army, the navy, the air force, the wrens and the ATS. I can remember easily the people who came back but there were lots more who didn鈥檛 come back and I can鈥檛 quite recall all of their names, especially if the families are gone now.
Every household got a form to fill in saying how many were in the house, how many rooms and who would be willing to go to war if necessary. Farmers鈥� Sons got away with it more but if there were two sons one had to go.
My friends who were away used to write letters home but they were all censored. Little bits would be clipped out leaving holes in the paper, they were not allowed to give away where they where or much detail of what they were doing.
It was very interesting listening to my great granny talk about the war and what her life was like. It was very different to what my life is like now. Granny says everybody had an identity number and she can still remember hers of by heart UANS9375.

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