Memories of the War - Joy Arms

I remember when the Americans came; we didn't have chewing gum until then. They were in Bruntingthorpe. We used to go to church every Sunday. I remember the searchlights. I remember women standing on their doorsteps in the corsets, watching the searchlights.

I lived next door to the Pilgrims; he was a solicitor, and he lived at The Croft. They had a cook; she used to sit me on the top and feed me strawberries and cream. I was the baby of the family - the youngest of 10 - so by then my brothers and sisters were working, and so my parents were better off. Mum was an only child, but she loved kids.

I had a brother, Raymond Ruby. The ladies had to work on the farm, and they used to bring potatoes home with them. There were a lot of thatched cottages on Windsor Street, but they've pulled them all down. Dad was a miner, so we got free coal. Mr Bates lived almost opposite, and he was a cobbler. Dad had an accident in the pits, and he lost a leg when he was a young man in a pit accident.

We had a big garden, and Dad grew all our vegetables, and we had chickens and ducks. My sister in Nuneaton and they kept pigs, but they couldn't keep the pork; but her husband, Kelly, brought us some in a bloodstained pillowcase - he shouldn't have. We'd call out to the Americans - 'Got any gum chum?' and they would throw us sticks of gum, which we'd never had before. I remember our neighbour telling Mum that the war was over, saying Ernie (her husband) would be home soon; they split up though, and he went off with someone else.

We had a party at the Horsepool when the war ended - everyone was so happy. We had the old tables from the church, we had a bun, jelly made out of pop and gelatine - all homemade stuff. It didn't take much to make us happy back then. We couldn't get new stuff; we had to make do with hand-me-downs. We had quite a few evacuees in Burbage from London, and they taught us to swear.