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This story was submitted to the website by Karolina Kopiec from ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ GMR Action Desk on behalf of Pauline Chattington and has been added to the site with her permission.

My first recollection of war was seeing a khaki uniform hacking up in the dining room and saying to mother I did not want my daddy to go to war. She explained to me he was going in the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard and would not be going away.
I was 4 when the war started and went to Revue Infants School in spring 1940 just after my sister was born. We took over gas masks in a square box into school and had to go in a back of bus to have them tested.
Living in Blackpool the thing I remember most was all the evacuees. We had a boy staying with us who had attended Manchester grammar school. Most of all I remember Mrs Braithwaite next door who took in 7 brothers from the East End of London. I realised now she must have been a saint. For part of the war we only went to school part time because of all the evacuees.
I remember the family the other side of us, the Pimblys. He was in California for the last 2 years of the war and used to send parcel of food and clothes home. Sometimes a rare treat fro me and my sister.
I was just 10 when the war finished in Europe and whilst I do not remember the actual day what I do remember is queuing for a free ice —cream. In Blackpool there was a famous ice-cream factory called Pablos, it was down a long arty between Adelaide Street and Albert Road I think and the old Mr Pablos opened up to celebrate the ending of the war and gave all the children in Blackpool a free cornet. I can still remember what I was wearing: pink dress with the initial P on it and my school blazer.
Strangest of all, my grandson Thomas is now during this period in time for his History G.C.S.E. Am I really this old? Am I part of history too?

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