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I was born in born in Hull in August 1936.

My earliest memory is when our house, the second one in a terrace of houses, burnt down. I was thrown out of the upstairs window into an eiderdown held by the neighbours. My father cut his hand breaking the window. The neighbour took me into the house next door and I remember that was filled with smoke. We were to go and live with relatives whilst the house was repaired which was going to be difficult since it was the start of the war and materials were scarce. I remember coming back to the house and finding my toy rubber cow stuck to the cupboard door.

My father as a manager of a paint firm was in reserved occupation so he did not go to fight in the war. When we finally moved back into the house it was impossible to buy wallpaper, so my parents decorated the lounge be painting it green then pulling three different coloured paints one at a time and using a large loofa making the mark with horizontal marks as a pattern all over the walls.

We had a concrete air raid shelter outside the back door, for some reason it faced the house. The wooden door on this shelter only covered the middle which was extremely cold. Our neighbours had what I think were known as Anderson shelters in their lounges. These were a metal roof and floor with a grid mesh sides. People put cloths on them used them as tables as they were about the same height.

In those days, children took themselves to school; it was quite a long way if the sirens went. People came on to the street and took you into their shelters even though they didn’t know you. There was a different attitude to children in those days. The children in the ten foot played together no matter if you were three or fifteen.

At school when the sirens went, we had a brick built shelter on the school playing field for each class. While the bombs fell we used to sing ‘ten green bottles standing on the wall’.

We had two evacuees to live with us. One, Raymond, was a cousin form Harrow and the other, John was a distant relative from London. My parents tried to adopt John. Why they came to Hull which was constantly bombed, I do not know.

I remember one evening my father was eating his dinner from a card table in the back room when a bomb dropped nearby. The front door, though locked, flew open and the back room door opened and my father, the chair and the card table pots etc, all rose in the air and came down unharmed.

We had wooden shutters over the windows in the back room. I used to love it when I came home from school and sat on a mattress on the floor and ate tinned stead and kidney pudding.

Towards the end of the war I remember Uncle Ernie coming home for the war on leave and us all going for a picnic with our new puppy, Binkie. Binkie fell into a drain and didn’t swim so Uncle Ernie leapt in after him getting his army uniform rather wet. He was due to go back next day and the uniform was so heavy that my mother was unable to dry it in time and he went back in a wet uniform.

I remember looking out of the bedroom window and seeing Hull burning after the bombs had dropped. When we went to city square I had difficulty climbing over all the hosepipes. Hammonds shop had completely disappeared as had many other buildings. When Hammonds finally reopened it was only in the basement and you had to walk on duckboards.

For some reason my mother has never explained, I was sent to Harrow for part of the war. Even before the sirens sounded, the Lions used to roar when they heard the buzz bombs coming. I used to pray that the engines would not stop and that I would not be killed.

Towards the end of the war I was playing in the street in Hull when this plane came over and shot at me. I fainted in terror and came to, to see bullet holes in the pavement.

I remember that clothes were a problem. Hand me downs were gratefully received. We went to Andrews on Beverley Road, quite a long trip, to buy Liberty bodices. Every girl wore them they were white with flannel tape down them and were a sort of vest.

My Aunt Eve in Golflinks Road kept chickens. She used to beat milk into her butter to make it go further. Once in a while she gave my mother eggs and my mother would store them by putting them in a stainless steel bucket covered with isinglass.

We never had a banana or orange while the war was on and did not know what to do with them once we finally got them.

I was sent to a Convent when it reopened after the war because I would not stay in school. The convent was occupied by Italian prisoners of war they made snakes that bent out of wood and leather. There were also prisoners of war kept near Collingham in temporary huts. We used to go and look at them over the fence.

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