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My mum Ivy Lambert and her older sister Winifred (Winnie) lived around the area of Armley Jail in Leeds during the 2nd World War.

My mother Ivy had previously worked in the woollen mills in the area but when war broke out both her and her sister Winnie worked in the factories producing bullets and shells for the war effort. She also had a brief spell working for the asbestos factory in Armley (because the pay was very good) but couldn't stand the dust irritating her nose and left to work in a munitions factory further down the same road.

It was here that she suffered her first bout of bronchitis. She was taken ill during an air raid and so they couldn't send her home. They just made her a bed on some tank shell cases. They used to eat their sandwiches on a stair landing outside the building where the asbestos dust was blowing about.

Mum originally wanted to join the Land Army but was turned down on the grounds that they really needed workers in ammunition factories.

They worked in afactory called Wilsons and Mathesons in Armley. It was near Armley Jail and very close to the railway line. One night the factory took a direct hit. They may have been aiming for the railway line. However, the factory's office took the main blast with the result that the safe, which held the staff wages, was embedded in the floor with the blast and so the workers couldn't get paid.

My mum and her sister Winnie used to sing in pubs in the area. It was the local form of entertainment in those days. People knew them well. They would see them come in and say "aye up they're ere" because they knew they would be in for a good night of singing. Mum used to sing the jazzy numbers of the day, like Boogey, Woogey Bugle Boy of Company B or something similar and Winnie would sing more operatic music or songs sung by Diane Durbin.

They couln't afford stockings (they came from a large poor catholic family) so they painted their legs with gravy browning and took turns in drawing a line up the middle of each other's legs with a black crayon or something similar to represent seamed stockings.

One night mum and her sister were coming home from one of these singing sessions and an air raid warden shouted at them to "get down". They threw themselves to the ground by the railway bridge just as the bombs started dropping.

The next day they got up for work as usual but found that their usual journey to work was hampered by roads being closed by bombs that had been dropped on houses etc. They were by now working further up Armley Road away from Armley Jail in a "shadow factory". This was a garage but also made ammunitions in the back. Mum and her sister were the only women working here. They were both very good looking young women. Mum had auburn hair and Winnie had very dark brown hair, she was also very tiny. She was about 4 ft 11 inches and took a size 2 in a shoe. Mum and her sister used to do the "jitterbug" ( a dance that had been brought over by the American soldiers). Mum could easily chuch her sister about, through her legs, on one hip, then on the other because she was so small.

Mum was a "Fire Watcher" along with her step-dad (Geordie) which meant that when the Germans were bombing they dropped incendiary devices to light up the area they were about to bomb. It was mum and her step-dad's job to put them out so that they wouldn't be bombed.

One night, after work, mum (still in her boilersuit from work) and Geordie went out into the street to put out some incdendiary devices that had been dropped. They were carrying buckets of water and sand. They were unfortunately both blown of their feet by the blast of a bomb that dropped in an adjoining street. The sand and water went all over mum and Geordie. They quickly went into the air raid shelter and had to spend the rest of the air raid covered in wet, sand filled clothes.

Just after all this bombing a lot of the residents had to be moved to a safer area further away from the railway line and the factories. They were told to collect their belongings and be ready to move.

Winnie had a 2 year old daughter called Gloria, they had a 10 year old brother called Eric and an 8 year old sister called Kathleen. Their 3 older brothers, Tom, Bertie and Ronnie were in the Army. Theyf illed the tine bath (which most people used for bathing as there were no bathrooms in this area) with insurance policies, food and clothing and along with my grandmother, all travelled on foot to a Church hall in Tong Road.

My mother said her niece, Gloria recalled the event some time after the event saying "do you remember when we were evaporagted up Tong Road". Her brother Eric used to watch the "dog fights" in the skies above their ghome. He used to call the planed meshershits and pissfires.

Mum was great friends with Sarah Battensby. They worked in the mills together in the Stanningley area. Mum was a Burler and Mender before the war.

Sarah came from an even poorer family than mum did and often had to borrow the money for the tram far to Stanningley and something for her breakfast from grandma.

Sarah, like mum, came from a big family. She had lots of brothers and a sister called Florence. Mum had been on a "date" with one her her friend's brothers called Ernest before the war. Ernest joined the army as a regular soldier. Like his sister Sarah, his homelife was poor. One day he came home from work and his family's belongings were all in the street (this was not unusual for this family). A neighbour told him that they had been evicted and his mother and brothers and sisters were in the workhouse. His father had died some years ago.

He was hungry and didn't know what else to do, so he broke into the gas meter to get money for some food. He then went into Middleton Park and slept on a park bench. The Police came to arrest him but because he had enlisted as a soldier in the army and had his papers with him they let him go.

He was sent to the Far East and captured by the Japanese quite soon after almost drowning in the Yangtse River. He was taken to Rangoon in Burma where he worked on the Burma Railway along with many other prisoners of war for 4 years. He lived on a diet of rice and cucumber. They sometimes got a cigar from the guards. One day dad was denied his cigar. When the guard was sleeping he thought he would help himself, as he could see the cigar sticking out of the guard's shirt pocket. Unfortunately, the guard woke up and dad received a red hot poker burn across his stomach for his efforts.

When dad first joined the army he was A1 plus 1, which was the highest level of fitness. He was also a boxer in the army, a featherweight and had won quite a few medals for boxing. After 4 years in a prison of war camp he came home thin and emaciated, weighing barely 6 stones.

He arrived at Leeds City Station with many other released prisoners but they weren't allowed to talk to anyone, especially the press. They were marched under guard to a building near Armley Jail, possibly for debriefing.

Dad obvikously had quite a bit of back pay to come from the army. He and mum had kept in touch before his capture. He wanted to help his mum and his family with this money but he also wanted to marry mum and buy a house. Unfortunately, he had a number of "jungle" disease such as malaria and an enlarged spleen and the insurance companies wouldn't give him insurance so he couldn't buy a house. So they just had to rent rooms in someone else's house. They later took over the whole house when the other tenant moved out.

Mum and dad married on Boxing Day 1946. My sister Rita was born on 27 October 1946 and I was born on 1 October 1947. My brother Christopher was born on the 27 October 1949. Mum and dad were very poor. The house was old and damp. Christopher was a sickly child from birth.

Dad had to go to Liverpool when we were very young. They wanted to assess his disabilities for pension purposes. His pension was very small. While dad was away, mum had no money because dad was not working. We were very hungry. We had jam and bread for breakfast, dinner and tea. Mum says I complained loudest, saying " I don't mind jam and bread for breakfast, but not for dinner and tea as well".

That Christmas was also very difficult. I can remember mum being worried that there would be no presents for us at Christmas. However, the Church (not catholic)came to our rescue in the aid of St George's Crypt (now a charity for the homeless in Leeds) with toys, games and some food I think.

Mum and dad went on to have another girl, Sylvia in 1955 and another boy Martin in 1965 when mum was 42. We had by now moved to one of the new estates that had been built after the war.

Dad died on 3 March 1976 after a massive heart attack. Mum struggled to bring up their young son Martin on her own.

In 2000, just 2 years before her own death, mum was awarded the long-awaited payments to Far East Prisoner of War Veterans and Wives (only awarded to Enlisted Soldiers, I think). It was £10,000. Mum was in her late 70's. She had no idea what to do with such a large amount of money. She knew what she would have done with it when we were very small when she and dad were really struggling. She knew what she would have done with it when Dad died and she had a young son to bring up on her own and had no one would help her (except the British Legion) but this was too much, too late.

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