ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Louise Treloar of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team from Mrs Hilary Clarke on behalf of the Longstone Local History Group, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

The memories are taken from a special edition of a newsletter kindly submitted by Longstone Local History Group. It was edited by Liz Greenfield and published in Autumn 2002. Longstone was a village which sheltered evacuees and was comparatively unaffected by air attack, although the night sky was often lit by the fires of the Sheffield Blitz.

At the outbreak of war, I was just starting at Bakewell School on Bath St. I remember the cookery centre in some cottages next to the school. We learnt all kinds of cookery there as well as housecraft and we had our school dinner there too. I left school at 14 and went to work at Granby Garments (now Aitch’s Wine Bar). I was a seamstress on piece work. We made ‘rat traps’ for the ATS girls; they were bloomers, elastic top and bottom.

We also made the bindings for parachutes; some girls put their names and addresses in the binding hoping a handsome RAF man would contact them. Auntie Myra (Saunders) was our supervisor. I sometimes cycled to work, and sometimes caught the bus, 7d (3p) return. We used to go to dances in Longstone Institute and soldiers from the Rifle Brigade lodging down in Monsal Dale would come.

Pr-BR

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.