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I was working in a sweet shop in the city until 8pm. The nights were gloomy and eerie in the Black Out. The window could only show a very small light to denote being open. Around 6.15pm I was scared as a mouse was running around the shelves. I wasn’t staying to do with the mouse, so I took a chance and locked up to go home. I would tell Gwen the next day to put in traps. I had only just got home when the sirens went and Sheffield was bombarded for nearly nine hours. The next morning I went to find out about the shop. Apparently it had been wiped out with a lad mine in the first hour of the raid. The air raid shelter I should have gone in with the shopkeepers was demolished. So from then I was unemployed and being only 18 yrs old had to decide whether to join one of the forces or land army, or whether to go into war work. I decided on the steel factory as I was wanting to marry my soldier fiancé the following year.

We got married in 1941 and on January ’42 he was posted around for 4 yrs. My baby was 3 yrs and 3mths old when he saw his daddy for the first time. Both of my husband’s parents were killed in the Sunday night raid in Sheffield so I think we regretted the war. All it caused was misery.

1. Queuing for 3 tomatoes from 6.30am to 9am
2. Baking cakes with any oil or grease
3. Boiling a marrow bone for hours to get the fat when cold and stock to make soup with home grown veg
4. Painting legs with make up to look like stockings, with an eyebrow pencil for a seam
5. Shortage of wallpaper to decorate unless pregnant, otherwise using basic distemper, no emulsion in pretty colours then
6. Utility furniture so bleak and plain
7. My wedding cake, no icing sugar so it was decorated in rice paper and ribbon and neighbours and relatives donated food points for the meal. Then we spent the whole of the night in the shelter as sirens went twice for long periods.

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