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"This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Nottingham on behalf of Ken Ellender with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

I remember the black outs, everything was dark, we were short of everything- it was hell of a job getting torch batteries , there were lots of things you couldn’t get but batteries were rare.
In Long Eaton shop Grays I remember the battery van pulled up delivering a supply of batteries , a bus stopped outside everyone ran off the bus and got batteries .
We had to pull closed the black out curtains and if the sirens went we had to turn the lights off.
I played the drums, we did a lot of dances round the Long Eaton, Breeston, Sandiacre areas. I carried my drum kit on a kart on the back of my bike during the black out, we didn’t have cars just a bike. I got in a big band called ‘The Metro Melody Dance Band’ the Lenton Street School rooms in Sandiacre we packed them away every Saturday night — there was a big curtain across the front door to keep it dark, we didn’t really think about it at the time.

I was on war work at Armaduct Cable Company, Long Eaton, we worked very long hours in those days 8am — 6pm and Saturday mornings plus overtime. We made electrical cables for aircraft landing gear, graded cable, cable for going round ships hulls to stop magnetic mines exploding. I was about 16 years old then. We were one of the first firms to make plastic PVC cables.
It was a German company and at first the German workers thought it wouldn’t last long but then they had to go back to Germany. All the drawings / machines were in German so I had to learn German. We had to make all the spare parts ourselves because we couldn’t get them.

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