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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Sarah Housden of Norfolk Adult Education’s reminiscence team on behalf of Hazel Chard and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was about ten when the war started. We had a very hard, awful headmaster, and he used to come and slap me when I didn’t put my gas mask on right.

I remember some of the effects of rationing. Mum used to scrape the fat onto the bread and then scrape it off again to make it go as far as possible! But we were fortunate because Dad used to grow lots of vegetables.

My youngest sister was a baby and she had a gas mask which she would lie in. It used to worry me seeing her in there as she used to scream continuously.

Later on I became a WAAF and that’s where I met my husband who was in navigations. My father was too old to go in the Forces so he became a Special Policeman. He spent his time dealing with drunken Americans who couldn’t handle the local cider!

I lived in the Cotswolds during the war, and the only time we ever got bombed was when German planes off-loaded their spare bombs on their way back home. But the bombs always landed in fields and nobody in our area was ever hurt, so I had quite a peaceful war really.

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