Memoirs of a 15 Year Old Girl

Esther and myself were two young 15 year old girls who had recently left school in 1944. We were sent from Doncaster to Kenwick Hall in Louth, Lincolnshire. This was a large house set in its own ground. We were surrounded by airfields and every night we could hear our planes passing overhead, all going one way. My sister and I went in service when we left school. We worked as housemaids for the Dixons who were papermill owners.
Despite the hardships of the war we ate well as most of the food was produced on the estate. The air raid sirens screamed like a banshee every night, disturbing the quiet serenity of the countryside. One Sunday evening an incendary bomb was dropped on the house, myself and my sister were completely unaware that this had happened, the next thing we knew we were whisked downstairs and into the air-raid shelters in the cellars.
When the all clear went the house was almost completely destroyed and me and my sister lost all our possessions, including our clothes as we were just getting ready for bed when the bomb hit. Afterwards the red cross and the WVS came in and provided us with new clothes.
After the trauma of living through such an event we were sent back home to Doncaster. Meanwhile the Dixons daughters had a large house in Pitlochry, Scotland and we had to continue our work there. I remember being put on the train at 9:00 in the evening on the overnight train to Edinbrough. The train was absolutely packed out with people, including service men and women heading north. En route to Scotland in the dead of night the siren sounded. We were going over the viaduct at Berwick on Tweed when the train stopped, and there we stayed for a great length of time in the dead of night. Eventually the sirens gave the all clear and we continued our journey to Edinbrough, arriving at 6am in the morning. We were met on the station by a Mrs Liddle who took us to the hotel for breakfast and a wash. We continued on the train to Perth and arrived at Pitlochry in the mid-afternoon feeling very weary and tired.

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