Working Through War

My Very Own Bomb: London during the Blitz

One morning, I unlocked the door leading into the yard and discovered an unexploded incendiary bomb lying...

Lily Newick's Factory Story

Lily Newick remembers July 1941 when she started work at Canons Marsh, the old tobacco factory, which was...

Preparing For Invasion

We had a base in the biggest shop - men, women, boys and girls all doing 'our bit'. We were taught...

My War

German and Italian prisoners from local camps were obliged to help out on farms at busy times and...

When Smoke Gets In My Eyes: A Story of a Female Passenger Guard, aged 17

My arrival into the world was on October 26th 1923, at number 1 Railway Terrace, Kemble, which is not far...

Teenage Life in Leeds

The BBC Leeds Studio was quite near to Blenheim School and my young brother's class was chosen to do an...

Messenger Boys' Duties

The messenger boys - the ones who delivered the telegrams to the families - had a postman in charge of them...

A Driver's Tale

Although Billy had been born in Burnley his parents were from Yorkshire and returned to Keighley in the...

My Experience as a Bevan Boy In WW2

I was sent to Stanley in Co.Durham,the mine was The South Derwent Coal Co,a 100yr old pit... I have a...

A Civilian at Work

Then I go a job as Teacher of French and German at Christ's College, Finchley, boys only, where the...

Working at BHS during the War: In Nottingham

I was born in 1928 in Ironville and lived with my parents Walter and Doris Allard and my brothers Jack,...

My Experience of War Work

We only had cold water taps, so a boiler was used and we would use a steel jug to fill the sink...

War Time Experiences

What made Britain great were the ten million senior citizens who went through the War for a better Britain....

Scraping By in Wartime Norwich

He didn't come home straight away but spent time in hospital in London, Aberdeen and Norwich. When he...

Countrylife in the War

Joan Buse told her story to Helen Kemp at the Fairfield Manor Nursing Home in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent. We...

Working for the Ministry of Agriculture

I went to Bridport Grammar School in 1936 completed the five-year course and did o one year in the sixth...

Aircraft Components in Bournemouth [E.Meech]

They were building a factory in Francis Avenue, West Howe for making aircraft components; something to do...

Bill (William) Bryant's Story

I used to go to Liverpool, Bristol and London Albert Docks. He went to work for Reg Reece first, then he...

Springbourne Ladies Remember (Betty & Moira)

Betty lived in Swansea during the War. After the War, Betty moved to Birmingham to work in the BSA factory....

Stud Duck Memories of a "Clapper Boy"

The main object of the NFU was to go round the country filming war time Britten and to show the general...

Grandad's War: A Master Shipwright in Malta

My Grandad, Paul, was born in the second decade of the 20th century in the inner harbour region of the...

War Brings in the Patients

I had a bit of luck you see really, because it was towards the end of the War when there was a...

Irony: An Early Morning Job Prevents Internment

My father felt that if it was important enough the Police would call back; he knew very well that the...

My D-Day: Building Mosquito Bombers

Here they made the deHavilland Mosquito fuselage and the Horsa glider fuselage. The Lebus factory, normally...

The Trials on the Home Front in WWII

I worked as a textile worker at the outbreak of WWII; most mills were already processing army, navy and...

Professor Two Thou

My first job was shovelling peat into a machine but then I worked on the Kek Mills - these were about 30...