Valerie McCormick's memories as a child growing up in the war

I was five years old when the Second World War broke out. My earliest memory is of standing behind my mother at the open back door of our house. It was a warm sunny day and my mother was wearing a pretty flowered dress. She was talking about the commencement of the war with a delivery man who had brought our bread on that Monday morning and the seriousness of their talk must have attracted my attention.

We lived in Prestwich, north of Manchester. There were about twenty houses in our little drive which had been built the year before I was born. The drive led down to a main road which was newly built; I remember watching the steam roller smoothing down the tar as the surface was laid.

My father worked for Martin's Bank but he was called up quite soon and joined the Airforce. Instead of starting school at the nearby convent, my mother, my young sister and I went to live with my mother's parents in Lytham St. Annes. We only remained there for a few months as my father was invalided out of the Airforce with a gastric ulcer and he was in hospital for some time. On returning to Prestwich I commenced school at what was known as a "Dame's School" as it was near where we lived. By now I was nearly six but the education I received at that little school was probably some of the best in my life. I had my own desk with a lid that lifted up, an inkwell and dip pen. It was at this school that I learnt to read and write as well as the elements of history, geography and number. We chanted tables and had spelling competitions. We also had a percussion band and, best of all, delicious mid-day cooked dinners. We took our gas masks to school and practised putting them on.

Not much happened until the Christmas of 1940 when the air-raids started. About seven children in our little drive were taken each evening to sleep in the cellars of a large Victorian House next to our drive. Over the winter of 1940 all the other children except me had chicken pox, but we continued to sleep there. We wore siren suits over our pyjamas. One particular evening there was a very heavy raid after the sirens had sounded. The sky was lit up on our way to the cellars, which reminded me of how the fireworks used to be at Guy Fawkes and it was quite exciting. The next day we found that the windows of our next-door neighbours had been broken.

Our windows had strips of sticky paper across them and father made special blinds out of balsa wood and black paper which fitted into each window. If even a tiny chink of light showed outside there would be a knock at the door to caution us.

When father returned to the Bank he became an Air Raid Warden. Now, as soon as the sirens sounded, mother, my sister and I would make our way to the shelter of a neighbour as father would be on duty. The shelter had been dug into the ground and was deemed to be safer than the cellars. If it had been raining there would be water in the base and it always smelt musty and cold. There we would remain singing songs like "Lily of Laguna", "Pack up you troubles in your old kitbag" and "Darling Clementine" to keep our spirits up until the "All clear" sounded and we could return to our homes and our beds. One memorable evening my Father shouted down to us to check that we were all right. Then he informed us "Bland Road has just gone up!" We had heard a loud bomb land and knew it had been close. We would count from the time we heard the high-pitched whine of a "doodlebug" until it landed. The day after a raid the children collected shrapnel.

Our last place of safety from an air raid was the shelter we had installed in our dining-room. It was made of steel and the back of it was against the windows. There was no front just the back, a roof and sides. The cat liked to sit on top looking out at the garden. We slept in there each night for quite some time. It was a monstrosity: how wonderful when it was removed after the end of the war.

Collecting our new ration books was tedious. We had to walk about two miles to a hall in the centre of the village and queue up with what seemed like hundreds of women in a large hall. Tables were set out at one end for the people checking and distributing the books. The whole process took what seemed to me like hours.

My mother and her two sisters drank tea - everybody drank tea, horrible black smelling liquid. It was the panacea for everything. It was also rationed and the coupons for tea, sugar and jam were what our family were always short of.

At the end of the war the whole world seemed to change colour from black and white to technicolour.