大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Department on behalf of Kenneth Whitham and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."When war broke out I was 9 years old. Dad was too old for the forces and I had no older brothers. Dad was a firewatcher at Penistone Reservoir.

There was a shortage of food but it didn鈥檛 really affect us as we were not that well off. If we got a treat we thought it was Christmas!

As war went on we went to Locke Park to watch the planes and fires in Sheffield.

We had incendiaries in Ward Green.

When you are young every day was a sunny day, it seemed that way even though the war was on, it was just a normal life for us. We joined in the celebrations when the war ended at the Town Hall on Market Hill.

The nearest relative who was in the war was an uncle, he was a Gunner in the army, and he got through the war OK.

Two to three uncles worked in the pits it was a reserved occupation.

A plane landed in the quarry at Pogmoor, one of ours, in about 1943.

School was normal; we didn鈥檛 get any extra days off.

Longcar had brick shelters in the playing fields and they used to smell of urine as men used to use it when they got caught short on the way home from the pub.

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