Children of World War II


Children of World War II

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They told us Britain had declared war on Germany.

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I used to go home looking up to the sky,

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hoping that I would see a dog fight.

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It was like one big adventure.

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'That's me, Isabel.

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'And that's my granddad, Alan. He's 82.

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'At the start of World War Two, he was nine years old, just like me.'

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'During the war, Granddad lived at the top of this hill.

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'From here, he'd often see British war planes

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'going off to fight enemy planes attacking London.'

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Sometimes I go to school by car,

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but mostly I go to school by walking. How did you get to school?

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Well, I used to go to school on my roller skates.

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But of course, as you can see,

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this hill is quite steep.

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But there was no danger because there was no traffic.

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'The mile-long journey had taken 20 minutes to walk,

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'or less than ten on his roller skates.'

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'This is his school - Preston Park in Wembley.

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'It's still here today.'

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Is this your classroom?

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Yes. I was last here in about 1940.

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'Granddad's classroom would have looked something like this one.'

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The different things about that time was, our teachers don't wear suits.

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No.

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And we don't have blackboards.

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Yes.

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We don't have individual desks either.

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Yes.

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AIR RAID SIREN BLARES

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'Sometimes, when Granddad was at school,

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'they'd hear an air raid siren,

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'which meant that enemy planes were in the area

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'and might be dropping bombs.'

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What happened if an air raid went off when you were in school?

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It really was disruptive and the headmistress here

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has written about the daily effect this had on the school.

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So here you see September 6th, for example.

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"School began at 10.30 this morning

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"and at 2.15 this afternoon, following air raid warnings".

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September 14th. "School opened at 10.50 following the all-clear,

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"but children went to the shelters at 11 and remained till 11.40."

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If the air raids happened during school,

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then I think I would feel a tiny bit scared.

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'But Granddad wasn't scared.'

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I used to go home sometimes hoping, looking up to the sky,

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and hoping that I would see a dogfight with the Hurricanes

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and Spitfires attacking the bombers

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and all the white lines and tracks left in the sky.

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Because, for a young lad, believe me, that was very exciting.

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'During the war, 9,000 bombs fell in the area where Granddad lived.

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'Because of the bombing, many children were evacuated

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'to safer parts of Britain or even to other countries.

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'Some of Granddad's school friends were sent to Canada on this boat.'

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Here, on September 23rd, is a very sad entry.

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"The whole school was shocked today

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"when we received the news that seven children

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"lost their lives when the ship

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"in which they were being evacuated to Canada was torpedoed.

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That would be a bit sad if two of my friends got torpedoed.

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Hmm.

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AIR RAID SIRENS BLARE

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This is an air raid shelter that was used during the war.

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'If a bombing raid happened when Granddad was at school

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'the whole class was sent to an air raid shelter.

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'There's one like it in the school today. It's now a museum.'

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A lot of old stuff from the war.

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Oh, yes, yes.

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Did you rush to get out of school and into the air raid shelter,

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or did you all have to line up sensibly?

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Ah! We filed out and no-one was allowed to run from the classroom.

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So we came out in an orderly fashion.

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Then the teacher checked

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that everyone was out of the classroom and we'd be counted in.

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It was like a fire drill.

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Were you allowed to talk?

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Oh, yes. Oh, yes, you could talk and carry on.

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We used to take some exercise books in and try to work.

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But if anything's going on outside, it is a big distraction.

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You can't concentrate, really, can you?

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I used to like to sit near the door

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because I liked to hear what was going on.

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It's quite similar to this

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because there's wooden benches going opposite each other

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and they're doing their schoolwork which they would be doing.

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This is a purpose-built solid brick air raid shelter

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with a reinforced roof, as you can see.

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How did you feel in the air raid shelter

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when there were bombs going off around you?

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We weren't really scared, no, not at all.

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But the uncertainty of the rockets was the worst thing

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because the V1s, you could hear.

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And if the engine stopped, you knew there was imminent danger.

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How did you know when the air raid had finished?

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Well, the siren would go up high

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and then stay on high for a steady pitch.

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ALL-CLEAR SOUNDS

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When the all-clear siren sounded,

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Granddad and his friends collected pieces of metal called shrapnel

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from the recently exploded bombs.

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Here's two examples of shrapnel.

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And they really are thick, jagged steel.

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Here, just hold a piece and see what you think of it.

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It's very sharp and heavy.

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Hmm. Yes.

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It would hurt if you threw it at someone.

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-It would hurt a lot.

-Oh, yes, oh, yes.

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And it's very, very strong.

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'Granddad lived in this house with his mum, dad and brother.'

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Is that your mum?

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Yes, that's my mother.

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That's my brother Robin and my mother...

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Elsie Francis.

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And that's me as a young lad.

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My brother was not pleased that I hadn't smiled.

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Did you have a bomb shelter at your house?

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No, we didn't have anything like that here.

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My mother and father went to sleep

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underneath the table in the front room.

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So if the ceiling came down, the table would protect them.

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My brother, Robin, was behind a bookcase

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with a cover over the top

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and he slept in the corner there.

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'Granddad slept on the sofa under an ironing board.'

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Now, this ironing board

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was put across the back of the bed like this.

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And then put on the back of a chair

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and the seat of the chair was level with my bed.

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It feels weird because you can see,

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like, the ironing board in front of you

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instead of the top of your ceiling.

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But, of course, when all the lights went out

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you could forget about it, couldn't you?

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I would have felt a bit scared.

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One night, when everyone was asleep, a bomb fell on the house next door.

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How did you feel in the morning

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when you woke up and you realised a bomb had hit the house?

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I realised something very serious had happened.

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And I could hear a lot of shouting.

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And, er...then I was picked up by a police inspector.

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And my brother, Robin, was picked up by a fireman

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and we were carried out of the house.

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The people next door,

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where six people had been killed, had stood no chance.

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So the emphasis on the rescue was to try to get my mother out.

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And the worry was, would the house collapse while they were doing it?

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So my grandfather said, "Well, I'm going in anyway."

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So the rescuers went in, they followed him in,

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and, er...but it was too late.

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My mother had been killed and we were all in a state of shock.

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Granddad's mum, my great-grandma,

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was one of the 60,000 people that died in Britain

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during the bombing raids of World War Two.

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'Granddad's told me lots of stories

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'about his life growing up as a child in World War Two.

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'But my favourite was that he slept under an ironing board

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'and it saved his life.'

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That's your great-granddad.

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And we called him Our Butcher

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because that's where we used to get all our meat.

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Yes.

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'That's me, Anesha. I'm 11.

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'And this is Mrs Campbell. She's 78.

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'She's been a family friend for many years.'

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-Do you remember Nanna Lily?

-Yeah.

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-You must take after her, Anesha.

-Yes.

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Mrs Campbell was five at the start of World War Two

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and lived with her mum and dad.

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This was my dad. And his name was Simon.

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And he was born in Jamaica. He came over into the country.

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He was in the Merchant Navy.

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'Mrs Campbell's dad would go away on ships for up to two years at a time.

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'They carried goods like food, coal and oil.

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'His job became even more important during the war,

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'as Britain relied on these things to survive.'

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The family lived in Bute Town, close to Cardiff Docks in South Wales.

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The docks were targeted, along with many big cities,

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by enemy bombing raids.

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Over 2,000 bombs fell on Cardiff during the war

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and hundreds of buildings were destroyed.

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It was quite a dangerous place to be in

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and that's why some parents wanted their children to be evacuated.

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Being evacuated meant leaving your home

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and going to live in smaller towns and villages outside the cities,

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which were less likely to be bombed.

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'Three million people were evacuated during the war.'

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Mrs Campbell was one of them.

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She was sent with her classmates from St Mary's,

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the same school I am at now.

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Right, Anesha. Now you're going to be an evacuee.

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There's your suitcase.

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There's your gas mask, which is very, very important.

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And there's your label.

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'Labels were important in case children got lost.'

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And everyone had a gas mask,

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just in case poisonous gas bombs were dropped during air raids.

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Mrs Campbell and I are going on the same journey

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that she took as an evacuee when she was seven.

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We didn't go on trains very often.

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I don't think I'd ever travelled from this station before.

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So although we were a bit unhappy,

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we were also very excited.

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Children from cities all over the country

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were evacuated on trains like this one.

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Some of our little cases. I had a small case.

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That's a gas mask.

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-They all look happy, don't they?

-Yes.

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Because, to all of us, it was like one big adventure.

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We're going to Aberdare, which is 25 miles from Cardiff,

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to where Mrs Campbell and her school friends were evacuated.

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Do you remember what you saw when you were on the train?

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Actually, it's 70 years since I was evacuated.

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So my memory's not all that good.

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But one thing I do remember is seeing so much green.

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Because where we lived in the docks,

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we didn't have a lot of greenery.

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Did you know how long you were going to be in Aberdare for?

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No, we didn't. We didn't have any idea.

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All we knew was, we were going to be evacuated

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and we were supposed to be staying there until the end of the war.

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And I remember some of us were looking at our gas masks

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and wondering if we'd ever need to use the gas masks.

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I think we just, for the most part, enjoyed the journey.

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Although we did have some children who were a little bit upset.

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-But you made the most of it?

-Oh, we made the most of it.

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Those are very good words. We made the most of it. We had to.

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Yes.

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'When Mrs Campbell arrived in Aberdare,

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'she got off the train, just like me,

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'with her suitcase, gas mask and label.'

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We all had to walk down to the school.

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I wanted to go and remember saying, "I want to go home to my mother."

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This is where the Aman Junior School was when I came here.

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It was really very, very different

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but it's the stonework that I remember most of all.

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The stones and the mountains and the green trees.

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They remind me of when I was here all those years ago.

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We all stood in the big hall and people would come in.

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And they would say, "Oh, I'll have these children",

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or "I'll have those children".

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And I remember that my friend, Betty Neale and I,

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we were about the last two to be chosen

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because we wanted to stay together.

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And I wondered if anyone was going to come and take us,

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or if we'd have to get on the train and go back home.

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So then we were feeling a little bit apprehensive, as you know,

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why hasn't anyone come along and taken us?

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But a nice couple, Mr and Mrs Challenger,

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they said that they wanted us to go and stay with them.

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Mrs Campbell and her friend Betty walked a short distance

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to this house, where Mr and Mrs Challenger lived

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with their daughter Hazel.

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We came into the house

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and Mrs Challenger had a meal arranged for us.

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It was placed in front of myself and Betty Neale.

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And I think it was then that it dawned on us

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that we were away from home. And we just sat there.

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We didn't pick up the knife or the fork.

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We just sat looking at each other.

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And then Mrs Challenger said to us,

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"If you don't know how to use a knife and fork,

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"bach, use your fingers."

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She just thought that because we didn't pick up a knife and fork

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that we didn't know how to use them.

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How would you have felt if you were in my shoes?

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That you were coming out, leaving your mum and dad

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and coming up here

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to live with strange people?

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I think I might have felt left out.

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Because they would have had a daughter that would know them

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and they might treat me differently than they treated her.

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I don't think we ever felt left out.

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But now and again, Hazel and I would have an argument.

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But the thing is, I could say,

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how did she feel that here were her parents taking in two other girls?

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-Yes.

-And previous to that, she'd been the only child in the house.

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Did your parents ever come to visit?

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My hair was really, really bushy and my mother used to plait it.

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But I'm afraid Mrs Challenger didn't know how to plait my hair.

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So my mother would come up on a weekend.

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She would plait my hair tightly and then all during the week,

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I'd just go like that with a brush,

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so that was nice and flat.

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And my plaits stayed in place.

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And also my dad, who was a seaman, was going away to sea

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and my mother brought him up to see me.

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He brought me a handbag,

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a little leather handbag that he'd brought from another country.

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And I remember it had Red Riding Hood on it.

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Why did you go back home to Cardiff?

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I went back earlier than I was expected to

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because my dad was killed in September 1942.

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His ship was torpedoed by a German submarine.

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And I think my mother was a bit upset about that.

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And she just felt quite alone with me being in Aberdare

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and my dad not coming home any more. What she said to me was,

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"I'm taking you home because if we're going to die,

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"we'll die together."

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I went home, but unfortunately I left the beautiful handbag

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with Red Riding Hood on.

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I've always regretted that

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because that was the last thing that my father ever bought me.

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After the war, Mrs Campbell went back to St Mary's School

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and later became a teacher there.

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But she never forgot her experiences during the war.

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The fact that you were, you know, taken from your house, your home.

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Put on a train, met new people.

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It almost...

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To me it was almost like an adventure from an Enid Blyton book.

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Hi, Tyler.

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Oh, that's lovely.

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-How are you? All right?

-Yeah.

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'That's me, Tyler. I'm nine and that's Sarah.

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'She's a friend of my Nanna.'

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I've started rugby at school.

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Have you? Great.

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'Sarah's 83, but at the start of World War Two she was 11.'

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During the war, Britain's cities were attacked by enemy aeroplanes.

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Bolton in north-west England, where Sarah lived,

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wasn't as badly bombed as other places.

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But the war had a big impact on Sarah and her family.

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She was in this church when she first heard that war had broken out.

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The priest was serving Mass

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and then he told us that Britain had declared war on Germany.

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I was very frightened.

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And I ran all the way home,

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thinking that on my way home,

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there'd be Germans coming round any corner at any minute.

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That was just being silly, wasn't it? But that's how I was.

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Did you know anybody who was in the war?

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My father was in the war from the beginning.

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Well, my mother wasn't very pleased because he'd joined up.

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In joining up, her dad volunteered to be in the armed forces

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and fight for his country.

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As war went on,

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all fit young men had to join up.

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What did you feel like when your dad went to war?

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There were things that you used to be a bit frightened of,

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as you always relied on your father.

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And it made it worse because they couldn't write to you.

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Just now and again you'd get a little card

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and it had been censored with the officers.

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They couldn't tell you much.

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"Censored" meant the soldiers' letters would be checked

0:21:290:21:33

to make sure they didn't give away any secrets.

0:21:330:21:36

Sarah's dad was away for long periods

0:21:360:21:38

but was given permission to visit her in hospital

0:21:380:21:41

when she became sick with diphtheria -

0:21:410:21:44

a very infectious illness.

0:21:440:21:46

Sarah was kept away from all visitors for six weeks.

0:21:460:21:49

If your mum came to see you,

0:21:490:21:51

they had to look through a window outside at you.

0:21:510:21:54

They couldn't come in.

0:21:540:21:56

And, in my case, they got my father home on leave.

0:21:560:22:01

He was stationed in England at the time

0:22:010:22:04

but he could only speak to me through the window,

0:22:040:22:07

which upset me a great lot.

0:22:070:22:09

Who looked after you when your dad went to war?

0:22:110:22:15

Well, my mother had to work.

0:22:150:22:16

I was the one that did a lot of things.

0:22:160:22:19

I had a little sister to look after.

0:22:190:22:21

She was seven years younger than me.

0:22:210:22:23

During the 1930s, most women stayed at home

0:22:250:22:28

to look after their families.

0:22:280:22:30

But during the war, women did traditional male jobs

0:22:300:22:33

whilst the men were away fighting.

0:22:330:22:35

If I had to look after my sister,

0:22:350:22:38

it would be happy because I'd be with her,

0:22:380:22:41

but sad because my mum would be at the mill

0:22:410:22:46

and my dad would be at war.

0:22:460:22:48

I used to cook a meal for when my mother came home from the mill.

0:22:480:22:52

I was only 12. You know what I used to make?

0:22:520:22:55

-What?

-Corned beef hash.

0:22:550:22:57

Because it was easy.

0:22:570:22:59

During the war, there was far less food to go around.

0:23:010:23:05

Rationing was brought in all over the country

0:23:050:23:09

to ensure that everyone got an equal share and had enough to eat.

0:23:090:23:13

What did you eat during the war?

0:23:130:23:15

-Well, would you like to see?

-Yes, please.

0:23:150:23:19

-Ready?

-Um-hm.

0:23:190:23:22

-That's quite a lot.

-Per person.

0:23:230:23:27

Oh.

0:23:270:23:28

For a week.

0:23:280:23:30

'The sorts of food that were rationed were jam, sugar,

0:23:300:23:34

'butter, cheese,

0:23:340:23:36

'meat, eggs

0:23:360:23:39

'and even sweets.'

0:23:390:23:41

If that had to last me one week, I'd never feel full!

0:23:410:23:45

And it would be hard.

0:23:450:23:47

Did you, when you were little, sometimes go

0:23:470:23:49

-and sneak into the kitchen and take some?

-Oh, yeah.

0:23:490:23:52

You couldn't get tinned fruit at all.

0:23:520:23:54

But now and again, you'd get word that there was some somewhere.

0:23:540:23:58

My mum, she got this tin anyway, pineapple chunks,

0:23:580:24:02

and put it away for a special occasion.

0:24:020:24:05

And I just don't know what come over me, but I just got it down,

0:24:050:24:09

right off the top shelf.

0:24:090:24:10

And I made a little hole in the top, poured all the juice out.

0:24:100:24:15

I drank the juice. Oh, it was good!

0:24:150:24:18

I hadn't had any for a long time.

0:24:180:24:21

When my mum come to use it, quite a long time after,

0:24:210:24:25

it was all furred up inside.

0:24:250:24:27

Gone bad.

0:24:280:24:30

Where did you get your bread from?

0:24:300:24:32

They used to deliver that by horse and cart.

0:24:320:24:35

And my mother used to say, before she went to work,

0:24:350:24:38

"Now, we only need a loaf today."

0:24:380:24:42

But sometimes I was a bit naughty.

0:24:420:24:44

And it was too much for me and I'd get a doughnut.

0:24:440:24:47

And when my mother came to pay the bill on a Friday,

0:24:470:24:51

she wasn't pleased with me at all

0:24:510:24:53

because I'd had a few extra things.

0:24:530:24:55

But when I used to see them on the tray, I couldn't resist it.

0:24:550:24:59

There were no supermarkets then, so Sarah's mum had to visit

0:24:590:25:02

different shops to buy her meat,

0:25:020:25:05

cheese and vegetables.

0:25:050:25:07

The shops, there weren't a long way in between.

0:25:070:25:10

You'd get them on every corner.

0:25:100:25:12

I'd feel exhausted if I was going to every shop.

0:25:120:25:17

And then coming back with everything ready

0:25:170:25:19

and then maybe have to go again.

0:25:190:25:21

Many people added to their food rations

0:25:210:25:24

by growing their own fruit and vegetables in gardens

0:25:240:25:28

and on any spare land.

0:25:280:25:29

The government started the Women's Land Army

0:25:290:25:32

to increase the amount of food grown in Britain.

0:25:320:25:36

Over 80,000 women worked on local farms.

0:25:360:25:39

And Sarah wanted to be one of them.

0:25:390:25:41

'I wanted to join the Land Army but I was only 14.'

0:25:430:25:47

I was going to be naughty because I was a big girl,

0:25:470:25:50

and say I was older than I was.

0:25:500:25:52

Just to join the Land Army.

0:25:520:25:55

But the sister at our school... I was ready for leaving school then.

0:25:550:25:59

She said, "Well, if you're that keen

0:25:590:26:01

"and you know you can't go in the Land Army

0:26:010:26:04

"because of your age,

0:26:040:26:06

"I can find you a job to help the farmer." Which she did.

0:26:060:26:10

Sarah spent hours and hours weeding fields like this one by hand

0:26:100:26:15

to help grow food for the people of Bolton.

0:26:150:26:18

Did you take any of your own food home?

0:26:200:26:23

She used to give me cabbages and potatoes and flowers for my mother.

0:26:230:26:29

And of course my mother liked that, you know.

0:26:290:26:32

And I could drink as much milk as I wanted during the day,

0:26:320:26:36

when it used to get warm.

0:26:360:26:39

So, you know, it was pretty hard work, really.

0:26:390:26:43

But you had this sense that you were helping.

0:26:430:26:46

And that's what it was all about.

0:26:460:26:49

This is where I used to live here.

0:26:490:26:51

Has it changed much?

0:26:510:26:52

One day, my mother was taking to me a shop

0:26:520:26:54

and in the distance I saw this soldier walking up our road.

0:26:540:26:59

And, you know, I said,

0:26:590:27:01

"That's my father."

0:27:010:27:04

So my mother said, "It's not your father, he's in France."

0:27:040:27:08

But Sarah was right. It was her dad.

0:27:080:27:12

He had a beard, which he didn't have before.

0:27:120:27:17

And he was just unkempt,

0:27:170:27:20

not tidy at all, which is understandable.

0:27:200:27:25

Anyway, we got him home

0:27:250:27:28

and when he'd had...

0:27:280:27:31

a wash and a shave,

0:27:310:27:34

a nice hot cup of tea,

0:27:340:27:36

he came round a little bit.

0:27:360:27:39

But when he did go to bed, I think he slept for three days.

0:27:390:27:43

Sarah's dad had been fighting in France in May 1940,

0:27:450:27:48

when the German army pushed the British forces

0:27:480:27:52

into a small area of the French coast.

0:27:520:27:54

Over the next nine days,

0:27:540:27:56

he was one of 340,000 men brought back to Britain

0:27:560:28:00

as part of the evacuation of Dunkirk.

0:28:000:28:03

To welcome Sarah's dad back home, they had a street party.

0:28:040:28:08

But it was not until the end of the war in 1945

0:28:080:28:11

that the whole country could celebrate.

0:28:110:28:14

See all the happy faces there?

0:28:180:28:20

Everybody smiling.

0:28:200:28:22

The party went on all night and all day the next day.

0:28:270:28:31

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