大象传媒

I left school in 1939 and went to work in a munitions factory. Because I was the youngest I had to get everyone's tea and Bovril. I was married at 18 and we had to live with my inlaws and I had to look after them because they were in poor health.

My husband was called up and I didn't see him for 18 months. My 1st daughter was born in 1942, then my mother-in-law was taken into hospital. My husband was called home because she wasn't expected to live but he wasn't allowed to come home for the birth of our baby!

In 1943 my father-in-law, myself and my baby were in the Anderson Shelter in the garden during an air raid. My own mother had heard on the radio that my road had been bombed. She came to the house to make sure we were OK and found that the debris from the bombing had completely buried the shelter. I could hear my Mum calling for me but couldn't see any light. She got a couple of the neighbours to come and dig us out with their bare hands.

If she hadn't heard about the raid we wouldn't have been rescued. I didn't like using the shelter after that and to this day I don't like being cooped up in a confined space.

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