Camera, action!

Child 1 What age were you when war started ?

Mrs H. Nearly 4

Child 1 What do you remember about the outbreak of war?

Mrs H Well I don’t really remember very much because of my age but I remember the sirens and things like that.

Child 1 OK. Did anyone related to you fight in the war?

Mrs H Yes. My father and lots of my uncles and my aunts were in the war as well.

Child 1 Did anyone related to you die in the war?

Mrs H Yes. My uncle died and another uncle was in a prison camp and he was very sick when he came home after the war. But the rest of them came home safely thank you. That was quite good.

Child 1 OK. How did your home life change after the war started?

Mrs H Well obviously when we went. When I started school and we were in school and the sirens went and then we went down to the air raid shelter which I quite liked because we didn’t have any lessons then. We just played games and teachers read stories to us which was very good. So obviously we all liked when the sirens went and could go down to the air raid shelters.

Child 1 Was there anything you liked about war time?

Mrs H Well I think people were very friendly with each other. They were all friends together and rich people from the village all came to the same school. They all played together. And so that’s what I can remember. That everybody was very friendly and helped each other a lot.

Mrs Hollyoak

Child 1 OK. What upset you or scared you about wartime?

Mrs H Well when you heard the noise of the bombs that was quite frightening. And when windows fell out , cause lots of the times when bombs dropped the windows in our house..... you know ..... they just shattered and eventually we didn’t put anymore glass back in. We just put cardboard on the windows because it was just a waste of time really to put more glass in. So that was quite scary.

Child 1 OK. What do you remember about the bombs being dropped?

Mrs H Well I can remember the noise. It was very very noisy . And we could see them coming over. Then obviously we had to go down to the shelter so we didn’t see them actually drop on the ground but we saw the devastation afterwards. You know ....... houses not there anymore. Things like that.

Child 1 Did you ever go into an air raid shelter?

Mrs H Yes. We went lots of times. I went in the shelter during you know... the Blitz. Probably a few times a week really. And from school, we went quite often. That’s why I said before that’s the time we liked. Seems strange, probably to you but we liked it. We were small so we didn’t know any other way of life. So thetas why we quite liked it.

Remembering school years