During World War Two I lived in Yardley, Birmingham and experienced many bombing raids on the city.
Rationing
Food was very strictly rationed. One day my mother had got hold of several ...
William Henry Grassam was a headteacher in Warwickshire schools, including Southam and Bedworth, between 1915 and 1955. He was also an active member of the community. He married A.M. Hammond ...
Featuring extracts from the 1431 Household Account Book of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, Archivist Amanda Williams explains how these extracts shed light on Richard’s famous prisoner, Joan of Arc, ...
Sidney Slatter was working for his father in Whichford, Shipston on Stour, when he faced conscription in March 1916. It was feared that his call-up to war would mean disaster for ...
George Henry Withers moved to Leamington in 1916, after a childhood in Weston Super Mare. Before moving to Leamington he had a range of occupations, including a grocer’s assistant in ...
Edgar Ronald Gardner (known as Ronald) was exempted from combat in World War One, working instead as an agricultural labourer. By World War Two he had become a film-maker and was ...
Ronald had previously worked as an agricultural labourer during World War One.
A film making career beckons
As an electrical engineer Ronald was always interested in amateur cinematography and in 1935 produced ...
After his time serving in the Royal Engineers during the First World War, Kenneth returned to Stratford.
Back to the family home and business
Kenneth married Eva in 1925 with a daughter ...
Kenneth and Carl Huxley were born in Stratford to parents Thomas and Elizabeth. They had two sisters and the family were living in Evesham Road, Stratford, in 1911, when Carl ...
In 1915 it was becoming clear that the new ‘industrialised’ style of warfare used in World War One needed a much bigger army than the country could raise by volunteer ...
I now live in Stratford, but I was born in Birmingham in 1938 and lived with my parents in Yardley, Birmingham until 1948. Our street, Barrows Lane, was about half ...
I married Ken Ashford on 23rd December 1939. He was a Coventry kid. We met at my Grandmother’s house. I moved to Coventry where we lived with Ken’s father and ...
I was still at school in Warwick when World War 2 was declared. At first it didn’t make much difference, except having to carry our gas-masks and putting the black-out ...
Sunday school attendance dipped sharply after the Blitz when children were evacuated and never recovered to its former numbers of over 100. For several Sundays after the Blitz the Sunday ...
Today, Rupert Brooke is possibly best known as a War Poet and is included on the Poets of the First World War memorial in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey, alongside fellow poets, Wilfred Owen, Edmund ...
The war went rolling on and by the start of 1944, things were getting tight. I never remember being hungry, but I certainly remembered being cold. My grandmother used to ...
My wartime memories start rather in Coventry round about 1939, when I would have been five years old. We got bombed out of Coventry after the 14th November Coventry blitz and ...
I eventually left the King’s High School Kindergarten and landed up in the Prep department at Warwick School, but after a while I had to leave for being disruptive and ...
During World War Two George, my husband, was in a reserved occupation tool-making for war factories. I was a housewife and we lived in Three Spires Avenue. Our son Glynn ...
I originally grew up in Uxbridge Avenue, Willesden before being evacuated to Brinklow in Warwickshire when I was 7. I was born in 1932 and lived in a two-up and ...
During World War Two I was working as a radio engineer and had already seen many nights of air raids over Coventry.
Everywhere was lit up
The night of the Blitz, I ...
I was at school at Hartshill South when World War Two was going on. The school holidays went on as normal. At night I heard the planes going over and ...
Frederick Elisha Freer was a tent-maker and manufacturer of canvas goods throughout his life and many will remember his business in Smith Street and later West Street, Warwick. He was ...
Although George V reviewing the troops before Gallipoli on the London Road is now a well-known story, at the time this significant event was not covered in any of the ...