South East Wales

Gilbert Dowle's Story

My most vivid recollection during this time was when the big German bomb fell in Ditch Wood, which is...

Uncle Harold - A Wartime Enigma

I was only about 4 years old at the time, and I became 'lost' in the crowd for what seemed to me...

The Changing Face of Childhood

After a long frightening journey, surrounded by strangers, we arrived at Pontyclun station and were given...

Evacuation: From Kent to South Wales

"With a large brown label tied to our coats for identification purposes, we children all stood in our...

Evacuee to South Wales

I was 5 years old in 1944 and was evacuated from Hanwell in South London to Penrecweiber in the Rhondda...

Hatton In Family Evacuation to Cardiff

However Bill and Beatrice did not want to sent their children to strangers and the family had an offer from...

The Change in Village Life

Children years ago had no money so their entertainment was mainly youth clubs, church organisations, scouts...

Walter & Pat Manson

At Chepstow Church School, we cut out strips of paper to stick on the school windows against bomb blast....

Childhood

Having to go into the Anderston shelter in the garden after we heard the air raid siren or to the Morrison...

Just in Time: Travelling to Cardiff at the Outbreak of War

Result: a mad scramble to get to Dieppe in the trusty Old Vauxhall, only to find the front in that coastal...

Evacuee Dies Aged 12 in Wales

In 1941,three of the children-Bill, Len and their sister,Audrey were evacuated to Aberbargoed, a small...

Life

One of the men stationed at the racecourse committed suicide, as he was a catholic he was not allowed to be...

Prisoner in a Brewery

So they took us and put us as prisoners in the Felinfoel brewery ..for being naughty that was. And then in...

'Mountain Ash' Memories

My mother bought thick black material for ‘black-out’ curtains and was busy sewing them up on...

Fitting Gas Masks

It was not so on that morning for me for I had volunteered to assist in the fitting of gas masks on...

A Day to Be Remembered

Bank Holiday is supposed to make you glad When I think of mine it always makes me sad On that Monday way...

Memories of my Childhood

My brother jogged my memory about the evacuees that came to live in our street from Jersey, one of the the...

"Can I Wear My 'Mickey Mouse'?"

The oft repeated scene,, went something like this: In the middle of a bedtime story - "Mummy, it's...

Conscription to join the Home Guard

Another occured a few years later when the idea that the German paratroops were going to parachute down...

Happy Valley: Evacuated from Kent to Wales

It wsa a cold, bleak morning,with a damp mist hanging over the river Medway shrouding the spire of the...

Gwen Kirlew Chepstow Memories

With clothes and shoes on coupons, some of us bought boys shoes because they were only two coupons instead...

Spitfire Groundcrew

During the second world war I was a member of Fighter Squadron 310 of the Czech Wing of the Royal Air...

A Little Girl's Wartime Memory of Visiting Ships in Barry Dock by Jacqueline Brooks (nee Kathrens)

A Little Girl's Wartime Memory of Visiting Ships in Barry Dock by Jacqueline Brooks. This was a...

End of war wedding for aircraft fitters

Reg and I were both stationed in St. Athan, when we started to go out…and it wasn't all that...

Working for the Glamorgan War Agricultural Executive Committee

We were sent out in pairs to work for various farmers and we all became very good at stooking, pitching,...

The Eleventh Hour.

One November morning,in the centre of the town,A crowd stood by the statue in the square.A small girl and...