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 Trevor Denton and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

I was born in 1936, in Snow Hill, Dodworth and I lived there until 1954. We had no back door and to hang the washing out you had to walk out the front and all the way round the back.

During the war we were fortunate; we went to Blackpool every year. We went on the train and one year it took 12 hours to get there. We had to change 5 times.

I went to Keresforth Road School. In 1941, we had gas masks. We even had to take them on holiday. We also had black outs.

Sammy Epson was the greengrocer at the bottom of Dodworth. He would let us know when there were bananas. And at Senior鈥檚 farm, old Mrs Senior would supply us all with rice pudding. Even if she hadn鈥檛 got one ready, she would have in an hour. There was a fish shop in the bottom, Horace Hodgson owned it. It was 2 pennies for a fish and 1 penny for chips.

None of my family were in service. Dad was a miner at Wentworth Silkstone and was exempt from military service. My little brother had an egg-shell blue gas mask and then had a mickey mouse one.

I remember the fire bridge used to practice firing into dustbin lids. And I remember standing outside watching Sheffield been bombed, stood on a wall. Soldiers used to come over in convoy and they used to camp at Stainborough. There were Italian POWs in Stainborough, they worked on the railway bankings and they used to steal from the food trains.

When the war ended, we had a parade, with all the horse and carriages from the village. The one from Snow Hill won the prize. Woods glass company gave all the children in Dodworth a victory V, made from glass and everyone had the day off school.

Some of the evacuees that came to Dodworth during the war, still live in the area.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.