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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Sarah Housden of Norfolk Adult Education’s reminiscence team on behalf of Marian Manley and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was evacuated from London to St Albans to live with my Grandparents. The house was full, cooking was done on a huge range, there was gas lighting and the toilet was outside. Grandfather had two allotments and belonged to a ‘pig club’ — which is when a few of the allotment holders got together and had shares in a pig. We kept rabbits and chickens in the back garden, and we stored eggs in Isinglass over the winter. We had lots of bottled fruit and tomatoes, and we would go gleaning on the field at the back of us for corn for the hens.

My Grandmother was a Fire Warden. We had an Anderson shelter, but rarely used it as it tended to flood. Instead, we usually slept under the stairs. We would buy 1d worth of bread rolls on the way to school and keep them in our desks in case we were a long time in the air raid shelter. This was a long tunnel with long benches.

I can remember us all having lots of childhood ailments. Lots of people had their tonsils out, including me, and at one time I had thread worms and had to come home at midday each day so that the nurse could give me an enema.

At school, Horlicks tablets were on sale for 2d at milk time, as there were no sweets available. Thee was an after school club for children whose mothers worked, and I was disappointed that I couldn’t go to this because although my mother worked, my Grandmother was available to look after me.

Our house was overcrowded, and when a new baby was born I had to go and sleep with some neighbours.

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