´óÏó´«Ã½

Coventry was heavily bombed in 1940, I was only five and found it very frightening. My mother decided to take me, Fred and Daphne to stay with her sister in Southern Ireland, where we would be safe. She returned to England to look after the rest of the family. We lived on her sister’s remote farm too far away for me to go to school. Life was idyllic with lots of fresh food and no rationing. My aunt took me into town and I remember a sweet shop where she bought me six bars of Cadburys milk chocolate in those lovely purple wrappers. I hardly remembered having chocolate before this because of the rationing of food in England. The bombing had almost ceased by then but many houses in our road were gone, including the house of the person who became my husband. It was completely destroyed. The rationing continued and I found it very hard after Ireland. Also my two older brothers had joined up — one to fight the Normandy landings and the other to fight in the Middle East. I missed them both. My older sister worked in a munitions factory as did my father.
We were fortunate. Our house was not damaged and we were all re-united at the end of the war.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.