大象传媒

I was 12 years old when World War 2 broke out and lived in the village of Fishlake in thew West Riding of Yorkshire,with my shunter/engine driver father and mother who worked our small holding with Dad's help of course.
My first memory is of sitting on my bed with my 9 year old brother shaking with fear - the air raid siren had just gone for the first time. Little did we know it was just a trial run.
We never had any bombs and only knew of the damage they did when we went to visit relatives in Hull or shopping in Sheffield.
In 1940 my parents took inturn evacuees from Hull- Marie and Ormand Jesmond. They didn't stay long the countryside was too noisy !!!!!!!
The birds.cows,hens,pigs etc. also there were no fish and chip shops or ice cream vans. Next they took in 3 more 2 boys and a girl,Puchard, June and Denziel we had some high old times together playing follow my leader all over the village going over our wellington tops in the snow.
The war din't affect us much - we had plenty to eat and were along way from the bombings. We did se a dog fight one day and a Spitfire doing a victory roll and then we all hiked off down the lane and across the fields to see the shot down plane.
Naturally we weren't allowed near it the A.R.P.were there guarding it.
My lasting memory of the war and really me reason for writing this piece is of the cheese sandwiches, by now of course everything was rationed . On Wednesday afternoon my mother would go to the W.V.S. meeting at Mr Beevers the school masters house to roll bandages and knit for the services. Later in the war when the evacuees had returned to Hull the bombing having slowed down , both my father, brother and myself and my mother knitted for the troops scarves, gloves, mittens and balaclavas, My attempt at the latter was a disaster. Back to the cheese.
I would be left to make tea for us 5 children, I was the eldest and my brother Allan the youngest. I was always first home as my school Thorne Grammar shared with Hull Grammar who had been evacuated to Thorne. us having the morning session and Hull the afternoon. So I would get the tea ready it was always bread and cheese and jam. I'd make a 2 slice cheese sandwich each- you could have more bread but had to have jam as we'd had our cheese ration on the first sandwich. I would eat all my crusts first, then the bread taking out the cheese and putting it in my next 2 slices of bread. Also on food the government were encouraging everyone to use any free food from the hedgerows etc. We had nettles in spring as greens they were pretty strong. One year there were lots of elderberries and mum made elderberry jelly it was horrible, none of us liked it, but it had to be eaten as alot of our sugar ration had gone in to it. We picked rose hips and got 2 pence a pound for them, we took them to the village school which was the collecting point in sandbags. that was a very nice money making project for us all.
Sweet rationing was pretty hard 3 ozs a week. I always bought things like cherry lips, floral gums and fruit gums as they lasted longest.
By the time the war ended in August 1945 I was engaged to be married to a sailor serving in the Pacific war zone.

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