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I was five years old when war began it didn’t mean very much to us young kids at the time. Then things started to happen all the young men went off to the forces and some had to go down the coal-mines to work, they were called Bevin —boy’s.

The fields behind our houses started to look like a large building site then a high fence went up all around it that wasn’t fair we thought they are our playing fields, and they want to keep us out, then we discovered it was to become a Royal Ordnance Factory for making war materials.

Times started to get hard with food rationing but mother would make a meal out all sorts of things the smell of home cooked cakes when you came in through the door was wonderful and tasted better than today’s ready made food. She was the best. There was lot’s of love in our house and all the money in the world cannot buy that.

Our school day’s were limited to mornings one week and afternoons the next and the girls vice versa that was to stop us using upstairs for safety reasons in an air-raid, but we didn’t complain. We still managed to have reasonable education and go on to better things in life.

At the bottom of our street in the ROF they had sited, a Barrage Balloon to keep the aircraft away also at night the soldier’s would come around with their smoke screen trucks and cover a large area with a smoke screen the smell of it was something, mother would always know where we had been, talking to the soldier’s as our clothes would smell of the oily smoke. Sited at the top of Belmont where part of the Celtic Manor golf course is was a detachment of Royal Artillery with a very large gun and when that was fired you would hear the bang it helped to make us feel a little safer and we called it big Bertha

Then came the men with the air-shelters, holes were dug in the garden and they were erected and cover over with soil, when there was an air raid we would go down into it many a night we would sleep down there. We were glad we did the night a bomb landed in our street it badly damaged six houses and smash a lot of windows. When a land mine was dropped in Eveswell Street it caused a lot of damaged and killed some people; the railway line in between saved us from the blast although some of the windows in our row were smashed.

Playing in the street one day with my pal John, when a telegram boy on his bike stopped at john’s house and being two nosey kids we went to find out what was happening, after a little while he came out and said in a casual sort of way its only to tell us my dad is missing some — where in Burma and we carried on playing by this time we were eight year olds, sadly john died in a lorry accident a few years ago but I don’t think he would mind me writing this, at a later date his family were told he was killed in action in Burma like so many families when this happened things were very hard. That is one thing that sticks in my mind clearly after all this time. So much was given by those people.

At the end of the war there were street parties every where and it was a long time before things started to improve the street lights started to come on and the old black-out blinds thrown out, what a change now from walking home in the pitch dark, its hard to imagine it now. Food and clothing was still on ration, how our mothers used to manage to feed and cloth us I still wonder, but they did, people helped one another in those days and although times were hard, I would still prefer our childhood compared with today’s where kids get everything and don’t not appreciate what life is all about. I wrote this small letter after my grandson said to me what was it like in the war grancha and started to think back on how life was then. (How times have changed) My Brother and Grandmother also two aunt’s and their children, are on the left photo my mother ,sister ,myself and aunts and cousins on the other I hope it is of some interest to you .
Howard.

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