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I was 10 years old when the war was declared, it was very scary at first, because we lived seven miles from Manchester and my two sister and two brothers did not get evacuated to the country.
We were all given gas masks which we carried in a cardboard box, we had to carry it to school with us — fortunately we never had to use it.
I remember the first time the air raid siren went off — this was to tell us there was going to be an air raid.
In our back garden we had what you called an Anderson Shelter. When the siren went off we all had to go into the shelter until the air raid was signalled over by the ‘all clear’ sound.
The Manchester blitzes were very scary. Later on in the war we had the doodle bugs, they flew on their own with a horrible loud noise; when the noise stopped you knew they were dropping and you just closed your eyes and said a prayer that they would not hit you.

Sometimes I used to stay with my grandma who had a big family so there were always plenty of things to talk about, lots of things to laugh about. When the siren went off we would all to an underground shelter which held a lot of people.To keep us cheerful we would have a singsong in spite of what was going on outside.
In those days stockings had a seam down the back and because could not get stockings we went bare legged but drew a line down the back of our legs with gravy browning! If it rained your legs would be all streaks!
Food was rationed — we had 2 oz marg., 2 oz sugar and 2oz butter per week. We all had identity cards and I can still remember my number!

I think I was about 14 when the war ended, I had gone to the cinema, when I came out the war was over. There were union jacks flying. I ran all the way home I was so happy the war had ended. We had street parties to celebrate the end of the war.

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