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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Olga McKee on behalf of Mrs Joan Graham and has been added to the site with her permission. These were the spoken words of Mrs Graham.

I was 15 when war was declared. Father was with the First British Expedition Force and he was no sooner sent to France than France capitulated. Father and the other men were marched right through Poland through Upper and Lower Silesia and ended up at Stalag 8B.

He was once in a camp with Douglas Bader but was separated because one was navy and the other army and Bader was an officer. Dad was made to work in the salt mines and the coal mines. He always came out with expressions like ‘Dobry dzien’ (means good day in Polish) and ‘Laxamush’!

For 5 years the Red Cross were in despair because they did not know where Father was. He was liberated by the Russians. The Americans gave candy and eatables but Dad was given a sword by the Russians and he brought it home to Carlisle and it is still there with my cousins. He was advised to go to a rehab centre in a place called Heaton. He was flown from Brandenburg to Brussels. He lived for 2 years afterwards and then he died. Mom was declared a war widow and got a pension. Father was a member of the Royal British Legion.

My brother and husband were both in the Royal Navy. My brother served on the Formidable and his last ship was the Sheffield. He was in British Honduras and was off the coast of Okinawa when the Atomic bomb went off and it lifted the ship right out of the water. It was the first bomb they tried. He went with a girl from Freemantle in Australia and later married her.

My husband served in the North Atlantic Convoy on Corvettes and all the boats had the names of flowers and the last one was the Clematis. His brother-in-law was one of the first casualties of the war, Sergeant Johnny McGaughey. He was sent out with a U-boat and he said they shouldn’t go out, but before dinner time my in-laws were brought to Ballykindler and saw the 7 bodies laid out in a row. The captain of the ship was court marshalled. All my brothers-in-law served with the Desert Rats.

The only people we met, were in the army and many were based at the firing range at Kenbane Head. When war broke out there were more Bushmills men went than stayed at home. They were with the Territorial Army in those days. Soldiers that were here were billetted in the Orange Hall, the Church Hall and the Nicholls Hotel (now the Distillery Arms).

My aunt took in evacuees, about three. Her husband, my father’s brother Robbie Maxwell was killed at Dunkirk. His sons went on to have very good positions with the army. My Uncle Charlie was a prisoner of the Japanese and never had good health afterwards. He worked on that famous railway bridge on the River Kwai.

The Red Cross was held in Runkerry the McNaughton home. Our local doctor and other ladies worked for the Red Cross. I was commissioned with a little card saying my father was a prisoner of war and naming the country he was in. Lady McNaughton gave me parcels with seasonal clothing which they had collected.

When I was about 18, I looked after the children of a Captain in the Royal Engineers, Captain Matthieson. The picture house was running in Bushmills and I worked as the pay desk girl or cashier. The price to get in was 2 shillings and sixpence for the balcony and 2 shillings for ordinary seats. I had to carry the takings home in a paper bag. Life carried on in the war years and people worked well together.

We had lots of fresh salmon, crabs and organic vegetables to eat. Rations were given out at the Church Hall. At one time I was talking to an American soldier called Bob Wilson. I said I was starved and he thought I was hungry. He brought rations from the Kitchen Patrol and gave them to me. The Americans drank Bushmills whiskey which they called firewater bought in a bottle . The Americans found the names of the local towns difficult e.g. Stranocum.

The court house in Bushmills is where the bodies were brought in when they washed up at sea. Court was held on the last Wednesday in every month.

My Uncle Tommy Allen was in the Air Force and won the Croix-de-Guerre from the French.

Blackouts were powerful. We were not allowed to light fires because of the smoke from the chimneys and people were living underground.

We collected string and another lady collected bones.

Kenbane Head had a railway and the firing range was there and that was where the men trained. The Belgians were the last lot at Kenbane Head. A local girl married a Belgian in the local church. Dances were out of this world in the dance hall and the soldiers all came to it. American army camps were every where in Bushmills. When they left boxes of spam and sugar were left behind.

After the war the joy was beyond belief, we all danced round the war memorial in Bushmills.

My sister and I collected 1 penny per week for 5 years in Bushmills and received a certificate and got an invitation to the Grand Central in Belfast. (This is after the war).

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