I was born in 1939 in a small holding in Green Hammerton and delivered by the midwife - five pounds on the 6th of December. No central heating or anything – we had three rooms and I think the bed was brought down into the best room so there could be a fire, ‘cause there were no fireplaces upstairs.

We kept ducks and hens and we grew all our own vegetables, as you did in those days. We had a pear tree, plum trees and a walnut tree.

I went to the local school, which didn't have any more than thirty children - we were more like an extended family. Our teachers were Mrs Watson and Mrs Dolby. Mrs Dolby cycled all the way from Kirk Hammerton on a bike - come hail, rain or shine. Miss Watson lived in the village and she was very strict - yes, you knew she was there!

At that time, we were put down for naps during the afternoon, and on Fridays we had cod liver oil – awful! And the milk tops - I remember that they were cardboard and if it was icy they used to pop up like a lollipop, with the cardboard on top. And we collected all these and made raffia baskets with them, or mats, because they had a little hole in and we used to put a loop through, and it was quite strong really.

We had two shops in the village: we had a general store and a post office, and we had a pub - The Bay Horse. And lots of farms - we had about four farms in the village.

I remember when I went to secondary school, at Boroughbridge, we were given a potato picking holiday in October to help potato pick - if you were 15 you could do that.

During the war we had a lot of aerodromes round us, so there were lots of military going about. I remember one day my mother had sent me down into the village to get half a dozen eggs, because it was November-time and our hens weren't laying as well. So the lady at the post office had put a double bag in, two brown bags together, and gave them to me to take up home.

And I heard this almighty bang, and I dropped the eggs - fortunately they were in the bag and I scooped them up and ran home to my mom. She wasn't best pleased, as you can imagine, but the bang was an aeroplane that had come from the aerodrome and had crashed, and the whole ground vibrated even though it was a mile away. So that's why I dropped the eggs.

Then at 11 you went to Boroughbridge Secondary Modern, and we had a bus that took us ‘cause the service bus was only every two hours to Boroughbridge. So if you missed the private bus, you had to go on your bike - seven miles, which kept you fit!

I remember also a farmer having German prisoners-of-war with the yellow stickers on their backs. When I went past, they were sleeping in a barn and you could hear them laughing and talking, and the farmer used to bring buckets of soapy water out for them to get washed, and fed them and that. You used to see them going about the village and we often wonder what happened to them. Suddenly they just disappeared - I remember them being about in the village, but I don't remember specifically them going.

Then my father came home from the war and was a village postman, which was something else, especially at Christmas. They delivered on Christmas Day in those days, so it was “Just have a drop, Billy!” and he came home very happy, wheeling his bike – couldn’t ride it!