1 Was your food rationed?

Yes. Tiny bits of butter, sugar, cheese, sweets or 2 sweet lollies per week. We had to queue a long time for a bit of meat, sausages or fish. We never had oranges or bananas but apples off our trees. Our eggs had to go to the packing station. All our milk had to go in churns to the dairy. Our chickens & ducks had to go to market.

2 Did your husband fight in the war?

No. He was exempt because he was a farmer. He was in the Home Guard who patrolled the village & fields. Long hours on the farm: cows to fetch in to milk, calves to wean, grass for hay, beet for cattle, wheat for bread & fields of potatoes.

3 Did you go to school during the war?

No. I was married with a baby, Great Uncle Charles. I organised the farm with Great Grandad Tom.

4 How old were you when WW11 began?    26    ….ended?   33

5 Were you evacuated?

No. I remember there were 3 condemned cottages. Into each came a mother & children.

6 Were there blackouts?

Every evening. Some of our curtains were already heavy & dark. We dyed others black or found some thick black linen.

7 Where did you live during WW11?

Vine House Farm, Thurcaston, Leicestershire. 1 toilet outside up the garden. 1 large sink to prepare food, wash clothes & wash ourselves. Very busy: to pick potatoes, women with toddlers came for 10p per day. Children 8-14 took time off school to pick potatoes or help with hay-making.

8 Did you grow vegetables in your garden?

Yes: cabbage, beans, carrots. Potatoes were in the field.

9 Did you use a telephone?

Yes because we had a business.

Did you write letters?

Not many. We paid bills by going to the offices in town.

10 Was there much petrol about? Did you have any vehicles?

We had a Studebaker Truck. We used bicycles a lot. We had an old shire horse. On the farm we were granted fuel for tractors. There were a few buses to our village. In winter, we had to get off the bus so it could drive up the steep hill.

Did prisoners of war (PoW) come every day?

Yes, when there was work for them to do. We paid the government for them to be brought on a lorry from the PoW camp.

Were you allowed to communicate with them?

Yes but most Italians & Germans couldn’t speak English. I didn’t need to speak much to them. Bruno was a German PoW & spoke English to me.

What were you allowed to talk about with them?

I wasn’t allowed to speak about the war. I only talked to them about the jobs I wanted them to do. Great Granddad spoke to them about the farm jobs.

What did the PoW’s do?

They dug out ditches and cut hedges by hand.  They picked potatoes in the fields by hand.  They pulled out the spare kale plants (used to feed cows & cattle).

Bruno helped with jobs in the cattle yard. He took Great Uncle Charles to school & fetched him back.

Were they allowed in the house?

Yes but they took their orders in the cattle yard. Bruno came in the house to do some of his jobs.

What did they eat?

For midday, they brought food with them from the camp. In the summer, if they needed to stay an extra two hours, I asked Bruno to make them jam & butter sandwiches. We were allowed extra rations to feed them. Sometimes, Italians in the potato field would light a fire on which to cook potatoes to eat.