大象传媒

This story is told by my mother.
In September 1939 I was 8 years old and camping with my family in Heysham near Morecambe. The weather was glorious and on the 3rd September my father told me that the Polish people had been bombed and were fighting the Germans. I couldn't visualise this, and then he said that war had been declared. We arrived back in Leeds after the holiday and found few children left in Leeds as they had been evacuated. All schools were closed - it was like a ghost town. I didn't miss my schooling as my father gave lessons to the few remaining neighbours children.
My one main memory of the war was shops with empty shelves.
I remember queueing at the greengrocers and getting two tomatoes for a family of five.
On VJ day we were on holiday staying in a gypsy fair caravan on a site by the river Nidd near Knaresborough and when the declaration was made we built a huge bonfire which burnt all night.
During the war I lived at 35 Wensley Road, Leeds.

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