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In 1940 when I was ten years of age, I was evacuated to Llantrisant near Cardiff travelling by train and then bus. This was a great adventure for me although I was sad to leave my parents and family as I had never been away from them before. I was taken to a school to await allocation to a family who was to be my host. The family were also hosting a girlie from London.

It was a strange house. It had 2 attic rooms upstairs and 2 rooms downstairs. The cooking was done on a range, something I had never seen before. There was no indoor plumbing and the toilet was down at the bottom of the garden.

Whilst I was there I attended school and was taught to speak Welsh. As Cardiff was being bombed at that time my parents thought it best to take me back home to Birmingham, as, “if something was going to happen then we might as well all go together.�

At home our protection was a corrugated Anderson shelter in my parents back garden. During the height of the Blitz we would go to the shelter at bedtime. One particular memory of this is my dad hurrying to the shelter with his false teeth in a mug (something he used to do each night) and of him tripping over and his teeth flying through the air. Of course he had to leave them because you could not use a light because of the blackout. I really did think it was hilarious.

I can remember the ration books and them being used for things such as bread, sugar and butter, they were still in operation in 1949. Material was also in short supply and I can remember clothes being cut down and being used again usually as something completely different. Sweeties were also on the ration books. We had powdered egg which I found to be quite nice and was supplied by the Americans.

My pocket money in those days was six old pennies. Our shoes were handed down. My dad worked in a coach factory and I can remember him bringing home some pieces of leather then he would get out the last and repair our shoes with them.

The night the Germans raided Coventry we could see the planes using the railway track on the Birmingham to Coventry line as a guide to bomb the city. We watched the bombs dropping. The bombs they didn’t use were jettisoned.

I started work in January 1944 at the age of fourteen. It was at a wartime residential crèche for children. It was used by mothers who worked in the munitions factory.

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