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'This story was submitted to the People's War site by Rick Allden of the CSV Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú Coventry and Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of Anne Bailey and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions'.

Allotments sprang up and all the remaining grownups dug for Victory. Allotment Associations sprang up, through which one got fertilisers and so on and many was the smelly sack of blood or bone meal I reluctantly carried home.
Having a large, at least it seemed large to us, garden, much of which was also turned over to vegetables, my grandmother, a countrywoman, who lived with us, kept a few hens as we only had one egg a month. If you had six or more you had to register them, so we only kept five. Even so we had to get their food from a special store. The first signs of something unusual happening was when my father helped our next door neighbour build an Anderson Shelter. Their drive was on a slope so they had more depth of land than we did. We were therefore allowed to share it and scurried round there when the sirens went. My main recollection is of the younger children (I was the eldest) settling down in bunks to sleep while I had to sit on a bench. Most unfair I called it. My father would pop in every now and then to see how we were and gave us bits of shrapnel. I didn’t know what they were or why he had them.
Soon, at the top of our road a small detachment of RAF personnel were deployed to service a barrage balloon. At first they would call on nearby houses in turn for hot water for their first pot of tea while their fire was got going. We used to go and chat with them, but I don’t recall it being there all through the war. It kept getting free and blowing away. There were the usual tales of the silk being used for underwear and so on.
From my mother’s family history, which she began to write, I learn we were sent away to Welsh relatives in 1940. I remember nothing of that. But, she said, she would be eternally grateful to them.
But I do remember going to Aberystwyth as a volunteer evacuee together with my little sister and grandmother, to stay with my father’s old landlady. We were there several months for although I took my entrance exam for The Newport High School for Girls, I was away when the results came through. I wanted to get there, of course and, ‘borrowing’ the money from my grandmother made my way home. The autumn term had begun. There was no hurry for I’d taken the exam a year early but I wanted to go. I found my way home, changing trains at least once. No one stopped me, no one asked questions.

This story was donated to the People’s War website by Anne Bailey, of the Leam Writers. If you would like to find out more about Leam Writers call 0845 900 5 300.

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