posted on 2024-06-05, 19:32authored byTheir Finest Hour Project Team
The contributor's parents are deceased now. Her mother was born in 1930 and her father was born in 1927. Both her parents grew up in Derby.
Her father had a sharp recollection. His memoir was written after the war in the 1980s. Her father was in the Home Guard as a Despatch Rider. Then he was in a reserved occupation as he was in the mines.
Her mother did not write things down. But she talked a lot about her experience and kept things carefully. She used to collect shrapnel with her brother by trawling with a magnet behind their bikes on their lawn.
History
Item list and details
1. Memoir
2. Photographs
3. Gas mask tin
4. Photo of a company of soldiers
5. Captain Frank Stanier heading parade
6. Photo of Home Guard platoon
7. Box of shrapnel
8. Satchel
9. ARP badge
10. Book-"Nerves vs Nazis"
11. Parachute silk knickers
12. Junior Red Cross handbook 1944
13. St John's ambulance book
14. Letter from King to schoolchildren
15. ID card wallet
16. ID card Ella Lake (grandmother)
17. Unused fuel ration book
18. ID bracelet Eugenie Lake
19. ID bracelet Lucy Lake
20. ID bracelet Ella Lake
Person who shared the story/items
Gillian Clay
Relationship between the subject of the story and its contributor
They were the contributor's parents.
Type of submission
Shared at National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire on 17 February 2024.