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This story was submitted to the People’s War Site by GMR Acton Desk on behalf of Pauline Patricia Gaughan and has been added to the site with her permission

'The Day War Broke Out' as comedian Rob Wilton used to say, we returned from church as usual and turned on the radio. (I was 12 years old and my brother was 3). The announcement came at 11am saying that Hitler had invaded Poland and now we were a 'Country at War'. As a child I sensed the fear and anxiety in the 'grown ups' who had already lived through the 'War to end all wars' My aunt and cousins were staying with us and we realised that the lovely Parish Church bells would not chime again from that day until either invasion or the end of the war. Thank God, it was the later - and on May 18th, 1945 they rang out again to proclaim our victory in Europe.

On Saturday morning I used to meet some friends and our job was to queue up at the greengrocers to get whatever was available. One day we saw a crowd gathering at the corner of the street, gazing into the sky ahead. That was our first sight of a Barrage Balloon above the Power Station at Agecroft

My father was a nurse at the mental hospital but was also a member of the A.R.P. During the 12 months before the war started, everyone had been buying up blackout material for the windows in preparation. We could not afford this cloth so my father started to collect corrugated cardboard and by September 3rd we had sufficient to make up roll-up blinds for all our windows. We were lucky - our house was missed - incendiary bombs landed on more or less alternate houses and a land mine blew up the centre of the road from Whitefield to Manchester. A boy in my class at school was killed that night. We were in our little air-raid shelter in the garden, feeling very claustrophobic.

The war years were sad, but happy too, for us children. The priest at our church started a Youth club for 14+. When we had finished our homework, we could go there for an hour or so. There were girls nights, boys nights and over 20s nights. Then on Saturday we had a dance altogether. On Sundays, after church, the priest took us all out hiking — into the country. We were so happy because our minds were taken away from all the terrible news in the daily radio reports.

I learned that the war was over in Europe when I was having my Medical for College. I Went in September 1945 to train for teaching. Previously, during the Augusts of 1943 and 1944, I went with a friend to work on a farm in Wiltshire (my bit of war work) — looking after the cows and pigs and working in the fields harvesting, stacking stooks and then packing the hay into the barn. In August 1945 I went to an agricultural camp near Oakham in Rutland. We lived in bell tent and were taken by army lorries each morning to the various farms. I drove the tractor once or twice but generally I worked on the balling machine. August 15th dawned, I was taken to church that morning by friends and then we heard that the war in the far east had ended. What a wonderful day. Our lady’s feast day — We went into Stamford in Lincolnshire and celebrated with everyone we met. We had fish and chips out of green paper bags — very strange — not newspaper!

My other war work was done in the local Post Office — the Christmas of 1944. We were allowed to start our Christmas vacation early as students were needed to help out with all sections of Post Office work. I was lucky; I was put into the sorting office. It was a very interesting job and I soon got to know which towns were in which counties.

All told the war years for us at home were wonderful from the point of view that everybody helped each other and no-one was afraid to go out in the blackout. We all felt safe with the people around us — we all wore large luminous buttons to see that there were people around us and all the kerbstones were painted white. The films and music all during the war were to cheer us up and to raise our spirits. To this day, for me, there is no music so wonderful as the sound of the ‘Big Bands’ especially of course, ‘Glen Miller’ — I have so many records, tapes and now, CDs of the music of that era. The radio shows too were eagerly awaited each week — especially Tommy Handlys ITMA (Mrs Mop — ‘Can I do you now sir?’). We were made to laugh to try to forget the terrible atrocities around the world.

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