- Contributed by听
- Northumberland County Libraries
- People in story:听
- Joyce Horne
- Location of story:听
- Yorshire
- Article ID:听
- A2553581
- Contributed on:听
- 23 April 2004
By Joyce Horne - Joyce Cooper as I was
I was 21 on the day war broke out 3rd September 1939, so we didn't really celebrate.
I lived very near Halifax, in a village called Rishworth. All the old mills were used as barracks for the soldiers.
We were asked to help in the NAAFI dishing up food and things about two nights a week.
My mother died and my sister got called up to ATS so we had a spare room. I was working in the cotton factory - we were doing stuff for the war.
They came to the door and said we had to have two little girls. They had come from Brighton - they were only seven years old. I told them stories all night to get them to go to sleep.
My dad said he couldn't look after them so I had to work part time and care for them - and I was only 21. There was nothing brave about it, it was just we had to do what we could. They just stayed about 18 months. We made a pantomime for the Comforts Fund for the soldiers and I was the principal boy.
We saw doodlebug that came over just towards the end of the war - it went off in a big field. We could hear planes going over all the time.
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