大象传媒

This contribution was submitted by Viola Stevens to the People's War team in Wales and is added to the site with her permission.

My mother had a grocer鈥檚 shop in Skewen near Llandarcy oil refinery and not far from Swansea. I was nine when the war started, and when my mother said war had been declared I thought: 鈥淥h how exciting!鈥� I had no idea what it was all about. I had an older sister who said she thought I should go up to Caerau near Maesteg, and stay with my older sister, who was married. So I was sent up there for a year amongst the Cockney evacuees鈥nd of course it was so quiet at home. No bombs 鈥� no aeroplanes, and so I went back to Skewen to the shop, and went to school in Swansea - St. Winifred鈥檚 Convent in Swansea. Because my middle sister was an artist, I thought I would like to have art lessons and these were on Saturday mornings. Once we had three nights of bombing鈥�.and we sheltered under the stairs for the three nights. We didn鈥檛 like the Anderson shelter 鈥� which our customers had built for us! We had no telephone, there was nothing on the radio about the bombings so the Germans wouldn鈥檛 know鈥o I went to school as usual on the Saturday morning. The bus turned up on time鈥he Bluebird bus鈥�.we went to Swansea and the conductor said: 鈥淲e鈥檝e got to drop you all off here now鈥� this side of the river bridge. Well, I found my way up to Walters Road, to the Convent, past all the buildings which were on the ground鈥eter Lloyd, David Evans, all the shops, the market, everything. Got up to the Convent for my Saturday art class, and the nuns said 鈥淲hat are you doing here鈥o straight home鈥� and they gave me a handful of new little threepenny bits and they had their skirts all hitched up because the laboratory had been bombed and they were cleaning up!

Once while sheltering under the stairs we had a mishap. My mother, my older sister and myself, and the cat were under the stairs鈥e had a candle and we had a one bar electric radiator. Well during the raid the electricity went off and when the all clear went we all trooped out from under the stairs and went to bed. Sometime later my mother shouted 鈥渢he house is on fire!鈥� Well, we鈥檇 pushed the radiator to the side of the stairs and it was all wood under the stairs covered in varnish, and the varnish was smouldering..and we got downstairs just in time to throw a bucket of water over it to prevent it going up in flames.

I had to leave school at 14 to help my mother in a shop because my older sister was at Swansea art college training to be a teacher 鈥� six years in those days 鈥� so I was in the shop. I was there during the whole time with rationing, cutting out tiny little pieces of paper to take once a month to Neath, to the Food Office. And if a soldier came home on a three day leave he had half an ounce of lard, one ounce of butter鈥nd the butter was in a big wooden box, the sugar was in a canvas sack, so it was all greaseproof paper and weighing out.

A family would give you their ration books and they would have all their rations once a week and any item they had went down on a bill鈥n tic鈥nd at the end of the week then they would pay the bill before they could get next week鈥檚 rations. Eventually when my mother sold the business when rationing finished, she had no bad debts. The amounts of food were very small鈥�.one time we had a box of bananas delivered, so my mother decided we would give one banana per family that had children amongst them. So that鈥檚 what we did and the stories came back to us about what happened鈥he children would say 鈥渨hat鈥檚 this鈥� 鈥︹�漚 banana鈥� and they鈥檇 immediately take a bite and of course it hadn鈥檛 been peeled.

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