Browse Items (635 total)
Sort by:
Interview with Rhona Hay
Rhona Hay was a very young child during the war and lived with her mother while her father was away serving in the RAF. Her brother was also in the RAF and was killed during a training accident. She recalls the acceptance of the bombing and so on as…
Interview with Eileen Handley and Dennis Bush
Twins, Eileen and Dennis, were born in Waddington in 1929. They give a detailed account of their experiences living adjacent to RAF Waddington throughout the Second World War. Summer evenings were spent waving to aircraft departing on operations,…
Interview with Nora Hailey
Nora Hailey was born in Portsmouth, and then the family moved to Eastney. Before the German bombing she was evacuated to her Auntie’s in Worthing. After a few weeks nothing happened so they went back to Portsmouth. When the bombing began she and…
Interview with Raymond George Goss
Raymond Goss lived on the family farm at Westcott before, during and after the construction and occupation of RAF Westcott as 11 Operational Training Unit. One evening a Lancaster collided with a Wellington on the field and both exploded. The Goss…
Interview with Margaret Givens
Margaret Givens grew up in Coventry and witnessed the bombing of the city. She and other children sat on the bricks of the destroyed cathedral to attend a service. Her house was bombed and while she and her brother was staying with her grandmother…
Interview with Pauline Ferdinando
Pauline Fernando, widow of Harold William Fernando, reminisces her late husband. His father was posted in Germany after the First world War, where he met his wife. During the war he was stationed at Binbrook, Bath, and other stations, carrying out…
Interview with Freda Fairweather
During the war, Freda Fairweather was called up to work for Avro’s and worked on Lancasters at RAF Waddington and RAF Swinderby. She describes cleaning the perspex windows and using her own box spanners to remove aircraft wings. She recollects…
Interview with Tony Dyer
Tony Dyer was a three or four year old child when his grandfather took him to the cinema in Reading on the 10th of February 1943. As Tony was ironically watching the animation of a bomber and a tank on the Pathé News segment a bomb hit the nearby…
Interview with Lawrence Henry di Placito. Two
Lawrence di Placito served as a second-class coxswain on the RAF Air Sea Rescue launches during the Second World War. Henry gives further details of his experiences in rescues, both successful and those with a tragic ending. He also tells of Ealing…
Interview with Violet Dicker
Violet discusses her late husband Alan Dicker. Alan went to Leighton County High School and at 16 he joined the Air Transport Command. At 17 he volunteered for the Air Force and became a navigator after doing his basic training at Blackpool. He…
Interview with Thomas Aiden Davidson
Born in Gateshead, Thomas was an apprentice railroad engineer. With the war beginning three days after his 16th birthday, Thomas feels very passionately about the British experience of the Second World War, as his only brother was killed. He claims…
Interview with Freda Dakin
Born in Salford, just outside of Manchester, Freda was a teenager during the Second World War. She recalls her family's culture, school life, meal requirements and how she reacted to the war being declared. She also recounts her experiences of…
Interview with Thomas Eric Chad Cushing
Tom Cushing lived alongside the site of what became RAF Little Snoring in Norfolk. He watched the construction of the airfield over time and the daily life of the operational squadrons thereafter. After the war he continued to be interested in the…
Interview with Jean Culkin
Jean Culkin grew up in Sunderland and worked as a tea girl and then a typist in a reserved occupation. She discusses her life and her wedding to her husband, John George Mackel Culkin. He was an apprentice at RAF Halton before becoming a fitter…
Interview with Olive Crowther
Olive had two brothers and a sister. One of her brothers joined the army and the other was an air gunner on Lancasters. She left school at fourteen and went to work as a mender at Albion Mills. She then worked on Lancaster navigation panels in the…
Interview with Thea Coleman
Thea Coleman was born in 1933 in Holland. She experienced the invasion of her country and the increasing restrictions. When walking once with her father they were forced to stand and wait while prisoners were brought out of prison and executed while…
Interview with Joy Colbeck
Joy Colbeck was born in Maidstone, Kent and served within the Women’s Royal Naval Service during the war. Her brother, John, joined the RAF on the 28 of April 1943, qualified at as an air gunner in April 1944, before being transferred to an…
Interview with Rita Chapman
Rita Chapman lived in London during the Blitz. She witnessed the sight of the burning docks from her garden. Her family sheltered in their Anderson shelter but twice got buried and had to be dug out. The rescue crews asked them to keep singing until…
Interview with Harrison Stanley Cammish
Harrison Cammish was born in Scarborough in 1923, and when he was fourteen, he became an apprentice carpenter and joiner, and when war broke out, he joined the Air Training Corps, and the Home Guard, who gave him a rifle and forty rounds of…
Interview with Nancy Titman
Nancy Titman was born in 1918, and grew up in Deeping Saint James, Lincolnshire. At the age of eleven she won a scholarship to Stamford High School and did her teacher training in Peterborough. In 1938 she attended an interview in Cambridge, had a…
Interview with Mick Kettleborough
Michael Kettleborough lived in Woodhall Spa during the war. His mother billeted RAF crew members in her home. One of them Jack Gibson asked for an early Christmas as there were some big operations coming up. Shortly before Christmas 1941 the…
Interview with Mollie Allen
Mollie Allen married John during the war. He was a Lancaster pilot and at one time they shared a home with another pilot and his wife. This was a comfort to Mollie to have another woman who understood what it was like to await news of their husband.…
War damage act 1943 (part 2). Private chattels scheme
States that the government has decided to pay all deferred private chattels as soon as possible in next financial year to include the amount claimed, interest and a supplementary payment where applicable. Goes on to provide details. Payment aimed at…