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In 1939 I got married in the May and was broke out on the 3rd of September. I was lucky to get a small back house by my parents in Ryder Street off Corporation Street as they were getting older and my brother Edward had contracted a disease which caused him to lose all his strength, he was 24 hours care but how we survived I’ll never know. We lived right in the city centre where Hitler dropped all his rubbish every night; we couldn’t tell if it was the Gerry’s planes or the Italian drones. After they dropped it all the sirens would sound, all the movement in the city would be full of glass; all the shops windows gone. Once they dropped a time bomb outside the General Hospital the men came to diffuse it but didn’t quite finish, so they went for a break in the Victoria in Ryder Street and it went off! How lucky they were as it shook all the places ‘round and what a crater it left. What narrow escapes we had.

We would come out of the shelter then get ready for work or stand in the cue at Daniels pork butchers in Aston Street for offal pork bones, pig’s feet or tails only. Then Margaret (my sister) would call to mothers to see what I’d got them for a stew up. They were glad of anything. They were bombed out of Summer Street off Summer Lane. Margaret had 7 children, she was put in a hostel in Moseley her four eldest children went to Saint Chads school so they were evacuated to Worcester but with great people me and my husband we loved them and we would go down every weekend to see them. Arthur the eldest was 22 so we took his bike down on the Sunday and on Monday morning he was back home but all was forgiven.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Anastasia Travers from WM CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mary Hadland and has been added to the site with her permission. Mary Hadland fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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