大象传媒

Before I was married my name was Shirley Butterworth and I grew up in a small town called Hinckley, which is in Leicestershire. When the war started I lived in a house on Factory Road with my Mum and Dad, my brothers Gordon, Peter and Mick and my sisters Betty and Jean. As the war went on my brothers joined the army and Betty joined the ATS.

I was born in 1935 so during the war I was a little girl going to school. I grew up not missing things like bananas or oranges because they were just not in the shops. I was used to wearing shoes mended by my father and drinking tea without sugar, (my mum saved our sugar ration to make jam). I carried a little box with a shoulder strap made of string wherever I went because this had my gas mask in it. The box was big enough to put little treasures in as well and in my box I had an apple and a small bar of chocolate. It was only a little bar because chocolate was rationed and I was not allowed to eat it unless I was away from home and by myself and an air raid happened. Chocolate was a big treat and I was always thinking about it.

Hinckley was not somewhere that was bombed a lot, in fact some evacuees were sent here because it was supposed to be safer than some of the big cities so air raids were really quite exciting. If one happened while we were at school we used an old storeroom as a shelter. It was tucked away in a corner at the back of the school hall. It was small and dusty and had only a tiny, dim light. All the old furniture which had been kept there had been taken away so now the room was empty except for a couple of rickety chairs which had been left behind. They were for the teachers to sit on 鈥� all of us children had to sit cross-legged on the floor and keep quiet and not make any noise.

I used to go the long way home after school because there was a dog I was scared of if I went the short way. I was nearly all the way home once and the air raid siren sounded. I didn鈥檛 stop to think but did what my mum had told me to do which was make for shelter. I didn鈥檛 run home though, even though that one was nearby. I ran all the way back to school, to sit in the dark, dusty shelter all by myself just so I could eat my precious bar of chocolate! Oh, it was delicious and I can still remember the taste and how it melted on my tongue! It was worth the long run back to school. I thought my mum was going to be angry with me when I got back home but all she said was 鈥淚 see you didn鈥檛 eat the apple then!鈥�

After the war, rationing of some things went on for a long time. I was a grown up with a job before they stopped rationing sweets 鈥� in fact I was in a sweet shop when I heard the news. So instead of having two ounces of this and two ounces of that I had a whole quarter pound of each AND a bar of chocolate!

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