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I used to go and stay with my auntie in Kings Norton, Birmingham during the war which was where Lord Haw-Haw lived so the area was often targeted so as there were so many air raids we would often have to sleep in the air raid shelter. One day after a raid we went down to my grandmothers house only to find one side of Elm Tree Road completely gone. My aunt used to have to go out on fire watch with a bucket of sand — not that that would have been much use!

As I lived out at Defford my first job was in Worcester at W & F Webb — which was a carpet and furniture shop in the High Street. The first day I got there wearing knee high socks and very young and naïve I was taken up stairs in a lift — the first one I had ever been in — and was met by the deputy manager. She was a very tall, thin, posh lady who asked me my name. When I said it was Pansy she decided that wasn’t good enough so she said I was to be called Pamela which is the name I was known by all the time I worked there. I earned 10 shillings a week and the train fare would cost 2s 9d. If I hadn’t had to go to work so young I would really have liked to have trained as a PE teacher.

For entertainment we used to go to the Theatre Royal in Worcester and I remember it would cost me 7d to go on the bus from Holt Heath and a seat in the Gods would cost 6d. We used to get lots of different acts at the Royal and I particularly remember Ted and Barbara Andrews who would bring their daughter Julie on to do a song. I also remember on one occasion there was a lion tamer on and the act was advertised as ‘not being suitable for children or people with a nervous disposition’!

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jane Moule of the CSV Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Edwina ‘Pansy’ Austin and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions

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