Derbyshire

A Land Girl's Lot

When milking was over, we ate a hearty breakfast of porridge, bacon and eggs prepared by the farmer's...

Evacuation: Southend to Derby

My dad was stationed near Derby with the army so my mum came there to live and got a job working on...

Wartime Childhood

There was no electricity installed,lighting was parafin lamps and candles, dad had a tilley lamp for the...

Kathleen Hilditch's Wartime Theatre Memories - The Buxton Festival

When war became imminent I was sharing a caravan parked in a field about a mile from Buxton where the Old...

Blue Feet?

My brother John, known to everybody as Polly, was a fighter pilot in the RAF. That's the blue dye out...

Buxton in the War

There was only one flying bomb in Buxton. I remember that after the war there were still rows and rows of...

Duty Calls

Born in the local waggon works as part of a semi-wild litter, Mickey say his war service as escort to the...

A Small Child's War

As Peter and I reached Gypsy corner, by the end of Frizzams Lane, we saw a very tall man on a very...

Memories of a Somercotes lad

My dad Percy Annable who had been in the first world war used to say to me "never volunteer for...

The Night We Were Bombed

My father and my brother stayed behind and my brother filled a bucket with water whilst my father threw...

Experiencing Air-Raids as a 14-Year-Old!

After leaving carr vale school at 14yrs old iwent to work at the local vrickworks for afew months, then...

The Iron Lady: Working at the Ironworks in Ironville

When the air raid sirens went off a fitter would climb onto my crane and I would have to manoever the crane...

A child's journey

Unfortunately the house that we went to was cold and damp and the very next day my mother took us all back...

A Bolt from the Blue

During the war, in my late teens, I was working at a bank in Derby, and was in digs in the suburbs...

Entertainment and Transport!

Despite the trials and tribulations of war, there was quite a lot of entertainment to be had, especially as...

Peter Dawbarn -Part 5: 'It’s like riding a horse'

After my accident, and then doing ground-duties for about four to six weeks they sent me to the CFS the...

A Wartime Romance

It was here that she met my dad Victor Leslie Brown, known as Les, he was billeted at the assembly rooms at...

Working with the enemy

Nearby we had a prisoner of war camp which had both German and Italian soldiers in it. I never had any...

From Smiths to Rolls Royce in Derby

I was transferred by the government from Smiths to Rolls Royce, in the coppersmiths shop....

childhood memories

My childhood memories are of the blackout and seeing my elderly aunt who had come to visit in daylight but...

Alfreton Hall: With the RASC

My father, Harry Walker enlisted for the army in North Yorkshire: coming from the small mining town of...

Learning the Tailor's Trade at RAF Hemswell

I was sent to work at Smiths in Drewry Lane, Derby at the age of 14. We had to have a letter...

Riddings a Cauliflower and Confusion

In Riddings during the war when the incediary bombs fell all the men of the village ran around in circles...

Rationing?

During the last war my mother was very fortunate to have a very good friend, Edith Ball who owned a grocery...

My Father a Miner at Bentink Colliery

He worked at 4 different pits in the Alfreton area but Bentink was where he worked the longest and this was...

Woolley Moor

In October 1939 I was about to start at my new school – Derby Grammar School but as the railway line...