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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from Lincolnshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Ellen Ellovit and has been added to the site with her permission. Ellen Ellovit fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was about three years old in the last months of the war and we held a ‘Spitfire Concert’ in the back street. I was dressed up in my best dress and was due to sing a song, but mum couldn’t find me. When I was located I was sliding up and down the air raid shelter and had torn my new knickers.

My dad was never injured during the war but when he was marching in the victory parade he was overcome by fumes from the tank in front of him and ended up in hospital where I was given fresh fruit and tasted my first banana.

Dad never spoke of his life during the war but once he was asked. He just turned around and said, “We were as bad as them”, so take that as you will. He was in the front line the whole time and only came home once on leave and that was when I was conceived so really I didn’t know the man who came home at the end of the war; a complete stranger but he was my ‘daddy’.

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