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The best thing I ever did
Ted Neale's account of his early experience from the age of 17. The factory where he worked burned down in a bombing attack so he volunteered for the RAF. He was posted to Scarborough then Carlisle to train on Tiger Moths. He met a girl called Mary…
To Jessie from Harry Redgrave
A letter and envelope from Harry Redgrave to his wife Jessie. Harry is studying hard for his exams and putting in flying hours in Fokkers. He replies positively to Jessie's mention of starting to 'Dig for Victory' by growing vegetables and suggests…
Interview with Robin Wright
Robin was born in Norwich on 16 June 1937. His father was in the Royal Air Force in Manchester, and then in Thetford Forest where the Merlin engines were stored. He finished his service at RAF Marham. Robin spoke about his school days. He…
Interview with Eric Wright
Eric Wright in lived in Rotherham at the start of the war. As a school child he says that he did not really understand the implications of it. The family moved to Nottingham and he describes life there, with the air raids and sheltering under the…
Interview with Tom and Gabi Wilson
Gabi Wilson grew up in Berlin and was a schoolgirl in 1939. She discusses one brother training as an interpreter and another brother returning from Russian prisoner of war camps. She worked as an apprentice at a publisher firm. She met her husband,…
Interview with Eileen Widdowson
Born in Peterborough, Eileen's father died when she was quite young, which resulted in the family moving to Grantham. With the East Coast main railway line and also a munitions factory, Grantham was a regular target for the Luftwaffe. Eileen recalls…
Interview with Gwendolen Wadmore
Gwendolen Wadmore was born in London in 1922, and lived there throughout the Second World War. Her early memories are marching with the Girl Guides. She left school at 14 and began work in a tailor’s shop; at the start of the war she was employed in…
Interview with Bernard Sterry and Cecilia Pearson
Bernard Sterry and Cecilia Pearson, both born in Hull, talk about their lives as evacuees during the war. Bernard, who was 10 years old when war broke out, was evacuated from Hull to North Lincolnshire until September 1944, when he came back home at…
Interview with Sydney Smith
Sydney’s father died when she was a baby. Her mother remarried and had another daughter and son. The son became ground crew in the Royal Air Force. Sydney lived a few miles from London and attended Byron Court School in Wembley. She was five when…
Interview with Tim Schneider
Tim Schneider lived at Westcott before, during and after the construction and occupation of RAF Westcott as 11 Operational Training Unit. He tells of feeding the rabbits when he was four years old; leaving school at fourteen to help working on the…
Interview with Roy Saunders
Roy Saunders was a schoolboy in London when the war started. He witnessed the bombing of London and was amazed when, on emerging from a shelter, he saw the smoke from the docks area. His school friend and family died in the bombing. Roy was…
Interview with Honor Saunders
Born in 1931 in Neasden, Honor Saunders found herself evacuated twice before any bombs had fallen on London. She spent the rest of the war at home with her sister and parents. Despite constant disruption to her education, she passed her 11 Plus and…
Interview with Ronald Roffey
Ronald was born in Charlton, London. He went to Charlton Junior School and was nine when war was declared. He remembered being fitted for a gas mask at his school. His aunt, who lived in Torquay, found a private billet for him and his mother in…
Interview with Millie Roberts
Millie Roberts has lived her life in and around Lincoln. Her early memories include being in the school playground at Reepham and watching an airship fly overhead, getting locked in a cowshed and knitting baby clothes from wool collected from…
Interview with Laurie Richardson
Laurie lived at 31 Buckingham Street, Hull, before being bombed. Laurie, then nearly three, and his mother went to stay with distant relatives at Talbot Farm, Bassingham Fen. There were a lot of Land Girls working at the farms in the area. Laurie’s…
Interview with Fay Price
Fay Price was nine at the outbreak of the Second World War, living in Grimsby. She and her twin were the youngest of six siblings. Her memory of the start of the war was the ending of birthday parties. Her father was a fish merchant and was able to…
Interview with Beryl Pickwell
Beryl Pickwell lived in Lincoln during the war and recalls the day war was declared. She was the youngest in the family with three brothers and two sisters. Her father and two brothers worked in war factories, Clarke’s Crank and Ruston and Hornsby.…
Interview with Margaret Ottaway
Margaret Ottaway lived in Louth, the sixth of seven children, and tells of her childhood there. She describes an air raid shelter they had in the house. As a seven-year-old, Margaret witnessed an enemy air raid on 19 February 1941, which caused…
Interview with Dorothy Lusby
Dorothy was born in Cleethorpes. Her father had served in the Army during the First World War. They moved to Grimsby at the outbreak of the war, when she was turning 13 years old. She recalls the bombings and having to stay in an Anderson air raid…
Interview with Joan Rosemary Macklin
Joan’s maiden name was Fellows. She speaks of her school days, until leaving at 16 and a half, when she took up an apprenticeship with a dressmaking shop in Hastings. When war was declared the dressmaking business suffered, so she went to Islington…
Interview with Kenneth Lindley
Kenneth Lindley was born in Hillsborough, Sheffield in 1926. Before joining the RAF, Kenneth was an engineer’s apprentice, and often helped the Air Raid Warden by acting as a messenger. He recalls joining the Air Training Corps as a teenager. When he…
Interview with Joy Joy. One
Joy Joy was evacuated from Hull at the start of the war, returning home for Christmas. She was again evacuated as the bombings began. She took responsibility for her younger sister, although she was only six years old herself, and she says that from…
Interview with Jack and Jean Howes
Jack Howes was born in 1933 in Nottingham. His father was a machine engineer and by the start of the war they were living in Lincoln where he worked for Ruston-Bucyrus. His father was then transferred to Grantham where he lived during the week. His…
Interview with Pauline Holloway
Pauline Holloway grew up in Harrow and turned 18 one month before the end of the Second World War. She recollects listening to Churchill’s speeches on the radio, sheltering during air attacks in a purpose-built extension to her house, and hearing the…
Interview with Margaret Hodgin
Margaret’s family lived in Fiskerton and her first memory of war time, when she was seven and her brother four, was of her father digging a shelter in the garden. The children would walk or cycle to Reepham school. Margaret was about 11 when an…