大象传媒

I'm Mary Marshall, On the morning of Sunday 4th September. The family went to early mass, and then after breakfast mum and I started to prepare Sunday Lunch. We switched on the radio, no tv in those days! we got all news and information via the radio. i was peeling potatos and mum preparing the veg. . neville Chamberlain announced that war was declared on germany. i had no idea how this would affect our lives, but Mum knew. she was a young woman in the 1st world war and predicted rationing, fuel shortages and queues which all came true. the only friction in our house concerned sugar - so mum produced 7 cocoa tins, gave each of us one of our own, which we were responsible for and weighed out our ration of sugar. she took a small amount from each of us for cooking and the rest we had to use ourselves, that ended the friction. Dad buit a large shelter in the back garden. he put bunks on each side and wooden planks on the floor so our feet were warm and we were as comfortable as can be. hw covered the outside with earth and put sandbags down. In 1947 there was a fuel shortage. i worked at Chadderton mill as a winder. The yarn we produced was to be used to make khaki for the army. we had to close the mill for 2 weeks at a time while the frost passed. it was difficult to keep warm at home. we had one fire in the living room. we burned a variety of things including potato peelings old shoes and we rescued the cindrs from the day before and put them back on. it was the health service after was a boon before that you tried your own remedies first and if these didn't work only then did you call a doctor for which you had to pay if you coldn't afford to pay outright you could pay weekly and the doctors man came round to collect contributions every week and we were paying sixpence a week for the helath service..

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