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Teachers bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers BBC©2009

Audrey’s story

At home we all gathered round the crackling radio for news at home. I think dad hoped he’d be too old to go to war. One or two uncles were called into the Army and Air force and an aunt was sent away to work in an aircraft factory. Mother, who had worked in an iron factory in Rother-ham before she was married, volunteered to go back to do her bit making cores for bomb casings in the foundry. She was pleased to earn some money too. My sister and I were left to take our baby sister to nursery each day and pick her up after school. Being the older of the two I was expected to ‘see to things’ before mother arrived home.

We were issued with gas masks, ration books, and identity cards and there were bottles of concentrated orange juice for babies and young children. My baby sister was given a big gas mark to fit into. In the event of an attack it had to be pumped constantly with air. Thankfully it wasn’t needed.

Air raids and enemy aircraft overhead frequently interrupted school days. Sometimes we travelled to school only to collect homework. The shelters there were old, single brick toilet blocks situated at the far end of the schoolyard. What good they might have been with bombs drop-ping is anyone’s guess. Many lessons were curtailed or abandoned because schoolteachers were thin on the ground. Drill practices were hilarious, though, especially when we marched across the playground wearing our gas masks.

Early in the war I wanted to emigrate to Canada but my parents didn’t think that was a good idea. I remember forging their signatures on the application form but was discovered in time. The ship I would have travelled on was torpedoed in the Atlantic with 300 children drowned. I was never allowed to forget it!

With food rationed, growing children were always hungry. Dad dug up the garden and grew everything he could to help. ‘Dig for Victory’ was his adopted motto and his farming skills came in handy. He also took me into the fields to catch rabbitsand taught me how to skin and gut them before they went intothe pot because mother could never bring herself to do it.

Read the full story at WW2 People’s War: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/29/a1096229.shtml

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Teachers bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers BBC©2009

He [dad] kept chickens and ducks to provide fresh eggs because she hated cooking with powdered egg. But she learned the new art of bottling fruit and preserving eggs. We all took our turn for what seemed like hours shaking the top of the milk into a minute little pat of butter. The margarine on our bread smelled strongly and sometimes tasted rancid. Dad had the cheese ration in his packed lunches and mother and baby had the butter ration.

Mother spent many hours in the Anderson shelter with we three girls. Dad dug the hole for it into the clay ground of the garden and when it rained the water drained into the bottom of it. Mother put us up on bunk beds at night above the water line. Often she sat beside us in a deck chair with my baby sister on her knee singing us to sleep with a rendition of First World War songs about Zeppelins flying overhead and pretending to be very calm and brave. This was especially when Dad was on ARP duty and we could hear the ack ack guns firing in the distance. She told us stories to divert our attention from bombers flying overhead. One night she rocked the chair so vigorously it collapsed and she and the baby fell into the muddy water. She laughed through her tears, but how we avoided catching pneumonia in that cold and damp hole I will never know.

Read the full story at WW2 People’s War: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/29/a1096229.shtml