Patsy’s Slipper

This story has been submitted to the People’s War website by Peter Quinn of the Lancs. Home Guard on behalf of Patsy Grayson and has been added to the website with Mrs Grayson’s permission.

In 1943, when I was about two and a half years old, during the bombing of Manchester; we all ran to the air raid shelter at the bottom of our garden. In the rush, I lost one of my slippers and tried to pick it up, but my Mam said, “Leave it, get in here!” I remember crying loudly all night for the slipper.
Some time before this, my Mam, together with many other mothers and small children, was evacuated to Blackpool. Her eldest child had already been evacuated to Cheshire, so she was angry and not in a mood to be messed about. When they got to Blackpool, she said all the mothers and children were made to walk along the street in a line, so that the landladies could choose whom they wanted to take. My Mam wasn’t having any of it! She said, “They’re not picking us out like prize cows!” And promptly caught the next train back home. Dad went mad when he saw her saying, “It’s not safe here!”

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