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I was nine and a half years old when war was declared 3rd Sept 39.

As children we didn’t see the enormity of going to war. Most of my friends had been evacuated to the Worcestershire countryside. My parents wanted my sister and I to stay at home with them.
There was no school for the rest of the year, much to our delight. Our lives were dominated by gas-masks, air-raid shelters, sand-bags, ration books, black-out. Those people with cars had to immobilise them, by taking off the rotor arm and depositing it at the local police station for the duration.. The bombing of Birmingham did not start until early 1940.
I can remember trying to sleep in the air-raid shelter and having to go to school tired out the next day. We were taught by teachers too old for the forces or too ill to be in the forces. I was 15 when the war ended in 1945. All my family survived.

‘This story was given to Leicester CSV and submitted to the People’s War website by Rod Aldwinckle of CSV Action Desk Leicester on behalf of Barbara Edmunds and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions

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