I'm from Sheffield and I was born in 1937, so when the war started I was two, but this episode must have been when I was about three.

We lived in a 1930s rented semi, and of course it was a new house in those days. Opposite there was a large row of big stone Victorian houses. There were lime trees, mature ones, down both sides of our road. My father used to come back home from work and go out to be a firefighter, an auxiliary one.

The air raid thing went, and mum and I went into the street shelter, as did all the neighbours. And the next morning, when we went home, we discovered that one of the big houses directly opposite where we lived had had a direct hit, and it was just a heap of big stones on the floor. And our houses, the row I lived in, all the roofs were very badly damaged from the blast from the bomb - some had blown off completely, and all the doors and windows were off. And it was the middle of the winter and it was snowing!

I remember my mother taking me upstairs into our house to collect my toys and clothes, and presumably Dad’s and her clothes. Luckily I think most people didn't have that many clothes in those days, but she obviously got what she could. And she took me into my bedroom, which had pink lino on the floor, and there was a hole in the ceiling right where my bed was, at the side of my bed. And it had snowed overnight, and there was a snowman from the ceiling right down to the floor – I’ll always remember that!

We must have stayed with some neighbours for a while - in those days people rented properties rather than bought them, and we couldn't afford to buy one. Down the same road, another house suddenly became vacant and we asked if we could have it - it was up for rent. It was a Victorian house built in 1864 for the owner of the local brewery. So it was a very big, splendid house with beautiful insides and a very, very big and beautiful garden. That's why I'm such a keen gardener - I started at the age of two with my parents, doing that garden.

There was a rockery in full view of the back of the house. I'd been ill and I was fed up - I was about three at this time and my mother was busy all the time, and I said “Please can I go and play in the garden?” So she said OK and she dressed me up very warmly. I took a doll and I went and sat on this rockery, and I’m playing with this doll and not really looking around, then I suddenly turned a bit and I could see something I didn't recognise in amongst the rocks. It was about that long and that deep, and it was rounded like that (gestures to show size and shape) and it was yellow.

I went in and I said “Mummy, there’s something funny on the rockery.” So she said “Oh, well I’d better come and have a look then.” And when she saw it, she was horrified. She said “You didn't touch it, did you?” I said “No, I didn't touch it!” And she grabbed me and we went next door, because we didn't have a telephone in that house, but next door there was a minister of religion and he had a phone. So she went round and said, “Can you ring the bomb squad, we've got a bomb in the back garden - an unexploded bomb.”

Further up the same road - it must have been on the same night - another more modern house was demolished. The people were okay as they were in another shelter somewhere else, but they didn't rebuild on that site for quite a while - they must have gotten enough money to get another house somewhere else. Then later, when I think I’d left home and gone to college, the site was sold to another family and they’d got plans to put a really modern house on it. And they were digging the foundations when they found another unexploded bomb, even all those years later, and the same thing happened.

I wasn't present on this occasion, but my parents and all the neighbours had to go and stand right at the end of the road while the bomb squad made it safe.

So those are two of my early memories of the war.