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The day war broke out I was at school in Blackburn. The school was chilly in winter because of shortage of heating fuel and although wearing our scarves and macs we regularly stood in the aisle between the desks and swung our arms to warm up.
My father was in a reserved occupation in the Post Office and joined the home Guard. It was a thrill to examine his .303 Lee Enfield, at one time fitted with a grenade launcher, and to hear his tales of training.
Once we were playing in the woods and we found an exercise was going on and chaps in uniform with darkened faces were hiding behind the bushes we wanted to hide behind. There were bangs from thunder flashes and lots of smoke.
Dunkirk time came and my uncle got out and made a brief appearance. Then he went back, was sent to Crete and ended up in a prison camp in Germany from which occasional blue airmail letters arrived with Kriegenfangenenpost stamped on them. His camp was overrun by the Russian army and they marched south through the Balkans with the Russian Unit which contained women soldiers much to his surprise. They crossed the mountains and were put on a boat home. He said the women were very tough.
Mother made a case for my Mickey Mouse gas mask out of white American cloth. This was a plasticy sort of cloth and would be visible in the blackout. At the street corners there were white painted horizontal boards so that we could see if mustard gas was falling. We had a stirrup pump in case of fire from incendiary bombs but it got more use pumping water out of the Anderson shelter. It was fun practising getting into the school shelters, round the blast walls through the sacking curtains in the dark wearing our gas masks. Much more fun than learning our tables.
I listened to the radio, no longer just Children鈥檚 hour, Out with Romany or ITMA but 鈥淚t couldn鈥檛 happen here just after the nine o鈥檆lock news. Tales of horror and tragedy and Churchill鈥檚 inspiring speeches. My uncle aunt and two cousins joined us from Croydon after finding a boot had flown into the garden with a foot still in it. We three children slept in a Morrison shelter in the front room.
We grew our own vegetables at school and I brought home some swedes. We collected paper and cardboard. The first time I filled the sack too full and was late for school because I could only drag it along. Somehow they understood and I didn鈥檛 get into trouble.
As we walked to school we sometimes saw the Headmaster in his gown and mortar board and we had to raise our caps and he would doff his square. If we met the Dean of the Cathedral in his gaiters we had to greet him courteously.
We worked on farms in the Fylde, sto king corn and hay, moved by horse and wagon, bagging potatoes. We had no holidays away during the war and all the trains were in black livery.
At last it was all over and the men started to reappear but many of them were never the same again.

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