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This story was submitted to the People’s War web site by Karen Elmes at the Building Exploratory on behalf of Amy Sewell and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Amy and her three children lived in Appleby Street in Shoreditch. When the war started she tried taking shelter in the underground, but she did not like it:

“First of all I tried the tube but it was no good… you’re squashed one upon the other, children couldn’t breathe.�

Afterwards they used to go to a shelter on Kingsland Road. Amy would always make sure the children got ready before going so that they would not have to sleep in their clothes:

“I used to take them down the shelter in the night, and it was called the Carwood Irons in Kingsland Road. I used to wash them, undress them, I wouldn’t let them sleep in their clothes, I’d put their nighties on and take them out down to this place, let them sleep down there and cover them over and I used to sit up beside them.�

Eventually Amy and her children were evacuated to Leicestershire, as she would not let them go on their own:

“I evacuated with my children, I wouldn’t let them go on their own, their dad had to go in the forces, I said, right, it’s my care to look after them.�

Amy really liked being in Leicestershire, as the people were really nice to her. While she was away from London she still paid her rent every week, but when she came home she found her mother had taken all the curtains and bed linen to the pawnshop and the ticket had ran out, and she could not live there anymore. Coming back to London Amy found that everything had changed, and new people had moved in. It was up to her sister in-law to tell her all that happened during the war.

This story was recorded by the Building Exploratory as part of a World War Two reminiscence project called Memory Blitz. To find out more please go to ^{About links}

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