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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Sue Sedgwick from and on behalf of Margaret Dallas and has been added to the website with her permission. Mrs Dallas fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I left school and wanted to be a nurse. I went for my training to Manchester Royal Infirmary and stayed there for the whole of the war. I was 18 years old. I remember there was a big balloon outside my bedroom window in the nurses’ quarters. We used to get one day off a month and two weeks holidays.
My boyfriend Harold was in the army in the 88th Field Regiment and was a prisoner in Thailand. We never heard anything from him and by the time I qualified he was on his way home. One morning I rang Harold’s mother to ask if she had heard if he was still alive or not and she said she hadn’t heard anything. About a week or so later there was a knocking on the door at about 4am. She wondered what was happening and when she went to the front door it was Harold. She couldn’t believe it! He had had to stay to the last and help repatriate the others, as he was a sergeant. Harold grandmother had a grocers shop in Ashton and Harold was always well nourished and I am sure that helped him to survive.

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