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Born in 1934, five years before the war,I watched them string up barbed wire and build pillboxes along the shore .I saw grey inflated barrage ballons float like elephants in the sky. I watched the planes that dropped the bombs, I heard wives and mothers cry. Everything was rationed, the tea, the cheese, the meat. Even the clothes upon my back, the shoes upon my feet. The enemy planes flew over, screaming birds of prey. They bombed us in our beds, at work, they bombed us night and day. An unexploded land mine lay at the corner of our street, a fire raged at the old Co-op, that made our nightmare complete. What little provisions the area had were lost to us that day, all we could do was to cry and shout, some knealt down to pray.

We were evacuated to the Miner’s Hall and from there to friends we knew, with nothing but a night-shirt on, my legs and feet were blue. Relatives heard of our plight and they opened up their door. The young slept on a sofa, I slept with the dog, upon the floor. And so I passed the war years until the Spring of ‘45, things started to get better, I knew I would survive.