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Hilda was 19 years old when the war started. She lived in near Brixton with her mother and teenage sister. Her brother was “in the services, in the army”. Hilda did various war work, including manning an underground station as an Air Raid Warden, loved dancing, watching films or going to the London Palladium and other West End theatres and carried life on as normal as it could be in spite of the war. But when the war ended, it all hit home and made the celebrations more meaningful:

“In the evenings it was very bad, we spent most of our time in the shelter — the sirens were going all the evening, so we spent most of the time in the shelter. To start with we had one of those garden shelters, that went underneath, what do they call them now, underneath the ground, I can’t think what they called them now. It was out the back of the house. Quite a few of us would get into the shelter. Anybody that could get in, got in — my family and some of the neighbours. When the bombing was on, everybody got in somewhere where they were nearest, just got below to get away from it all. There were children there in our shelter, we had music playing, we had a radio. We listened to what was going on.

My friend’s house, they were out sheltering with us, and after the all clear went, we went home to her house — when we got there, we opened the front door and all that was standing was the front of the house, the whole house had gone. It had all gone. There was no back to the house at all. She had some very nice relatives, only just up the road, and she went to live with them.

My younger sister was three or four years younger than me. She went to school just the same. You went to school and the sirens and you went in the shelter. You went to school just the same — it didn’t make any difference to us. It was a fact of life wherever you went, as long as you knew where a shelter was you felt alright. We all had gas masks and we all carried them with us. Sometimes I forgot to carry mine. And most of them did, forget them sometimes — but most of the time we took them with us.

Food was rationed — we used to swop with the neighbours, what we didn’t have we asked if they got anything spare, like eggs and things like that. Or tea, we sometimes didn’t have enough for a cup of tea. They asked if we got anything to spare and everyone just shared things. But we always had Sunday lunch, just the same as we have now, roast lamb or something like that, or roast beef whenever it was possible to get it. We’d have other friends in with us and the family — mostly people shared with us.

The day it was all over, that was wonderful, when everything was all finished. That was marvellous. I think it was on the radio, we didn’t know an announcement was coming, not where we were. It was a surprise. We went beserk all of us, saying what a wonderful thing it was.

It seemed a long time (since the war started) I didn’t worry me, as I say, I wasn’t all that worried, in fact I hadn’t thought about it or worried about it, but it felt a very long time to me. Although it was ’39 to ’45, just six years, it seemed much longer to me. And I never sat down and worried or thought about it. It didn’t bother me that way. Everytime I think about it now I get upset, to think what a terrible time it was for children, to go all through that, little children. And of course it was horrible for the evacuees, going away from home. It was very sad to see them go.

I remember them celebrating the end of the war — the street parties, everybody I think had a street party in those days. We had the Queen come to one of out street parties once and that was lovely, we had a lovely party for her. The tables were all up the street and down. Up one side and down the other. We played party games and we really joined in with all of us. It was lovely. I was on the pavement waiting for the Queen’s carriage to go by, in the procession, and I was right on the edge of the pavement and I could have touched her as she went by, she was so near. I remember mostly the street parties they had, the celebrations. Marvellous they were.

My brother came back soon after the end of the war and fortunately he was safe. All my family were lucky and safe, even my friend that had the house collapse, they were safe”.

This story was submitted to the People's War site Sarah Shires of the ´óĎó´«Ă˝ Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Hilda Jenner and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

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