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I was five when the war started. I attended St Peters Church of England School, Heysham, Morecambe, Lanc.
We had a beautiful holiday camp which was turned into an army Barracks for the soldiers to train to go to war. We used to watch them my two brothers, training under the barbed wire. We had a look out station observation post. Giant Gun by the beach. A big log across the road so no vehicles could go to the Harbour where the Irish Boats and tankers came in. The barracks were guarded by a centaury with his gun by his side. We could hear pots and pans being washed. We were quite nosey. I was playing in the tower cottages and there was a high wall separating the camp from our school which was barbed wired all the way around. We would hear one of the Italian Prisoners who was singing. He would work so many hours on the land and we got talking to him through his window and he said to us in broken English — you bring me a silver spoon from home and I will make you all a ring — which we did but the headmaster found out and the window was boarded because our parents were told. It was for our own safety of course but we were never afraid only when we had the German Planes going over Heysham to get to the Barrow Shipyard.
We were schooled into going into the air raid shelter in so many minutes and seconds during the day. We had a shelter in our back garden for all the road to come into but my mother would not go into it — we all went under the stairs. I was underneath her dress, the bombs were so loud I was scared. We were given horlicks tablets the day after by the headmaster to help us sleep if we had been up all night with the raid.
I went with my father to see the damage and there were beds in the road and half a house and people killed. They said it was a bomber who got lost and it was a moonlight night and the moon shone and lit up a bit of Heysham so he dropped his bombs where he could but I will never forget the noise that night and I would be six.
We used knitted blanket squares to sew together and socks at an early age. We would turn the heal and then the teachers would parcel them off to people who needed them.
My dad helped on the land. He would give a hand when the thresher would come with hay making and never asked for anything in return even though there was five children to feed and we never had any spare eggs only dried eggs.
When the soldiers came back to the barracks I remember them throwing money — foreign coins — at us and we would grab as many as we could and take them home.
My mother would wash an army shirt for a penny and she helped in a boarding house with eighteen airmen billeted.

This story was submitted to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War Website by Lisa Reeves of CSV Action Desk Leicester on behalf of Dorothy Swallow and has been added with her permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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