I'm an evacuee. Where I lived in Middlesbrough was near the docks. And as the submarines were coming in, they were getting bombed. And on the other side of the docks there was an aerodrome and unfortunately they were missing them and hitting us.

When I was three year old kid the army came and the house I lived in with me grandparents and they went out into the back and dug and right big hole and covered it with corrugated iron and that was our chance. And every night at about six o'clock the sirens would go off and we’d have to go down there.

Eventually all the children in Middlesbrough were evacuated to Scarborough. My dad had a sister who lived in Leeds and we were allowed to go and stay with her until we had to moved out and then we moved in with a lady in Harehills Lane. Her husband had been killed in action and she had a big three bedroom house. And when the war was over she decided to move in with her sister and asked the landlord if we could stay on.

A year after she’d gone a man came to the house. It was her husband. He hadn’t been killed in action. He’d been a prisoner of war.