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Interview with Barry Smith
Barry passed the RAF’s apprentice entrance examination in February 1945, aged 15, and went to RAF Halton to become an electrician. He discusses the three training which resulted in the First Ordinary National Certificate.
In 1948, Barry was…
In 1948, Barry was…
Interview with Thomas Peter Payne. One
Thomas was born in Hemel Hempstead in 1925, one of four children and lived in a row of terraced houses with very basic sanitation. The end property was a public house with no gas or electricity, with only paraffin lamps and candles. His first…
Interview with Frank Page
Frank Page grew up near Teddington Locks and was working for an engineering firm when the war started. His house was bombed and he remembers recovering bodies from the ruins and says he joined the RAF to get his revenge on the Germans. His pilot…
Interview with Sybil Green
Sybil was born in Bracebridge near Lincoln, she went to Bracebridge School then left at fourteen to work first at a Co-op store and then at and electric shop. Sybil talks about civilian life in wartime, her family working at Foster Quinns, fire…
Interview with Mary Stuart
Mary Stuart, nee Atkins, was the youngest of nine children who lived during the Second World War on the island of Malta. She tells of her love of aviation and how she spent time on the roof of her house when Spirfires flew over. Mary recollects…
Interview with Alan Mann
Alan Mann was born in Lewisham, London and left school aged 14 to begin an engineering apprenticeship at RAF Kidbrooke and with de Havilland. He describes being bombed and what it was like in the workshops. After the war he had a career with de…
Interview with Heather Hindley
Heather Hindley was a young girl living in Nottingham and attending private school when war was declared. She discusses air raids, sleeping in her grandparents’ shelter and rationing. She talks about the experience of moving to the countryside at…