Transcript for: rasing her son while her husband was at war and her feelings about the silence
Interviewee: Edna Ryan
Subject: Almondbury High School
What did you do in the war?I worked at ICI down Leeds Road; I was a brick layers labourer.
How long did you do that for?
About four years, I had a child, two years old, my mother used to look after him.
How was it brining up your son during that time?
It wasn’t too bad; just I had to get him up early in the morning take him to my father’s and then pick him up at night. There were some funny sides to it as well. I used to be scared when the sirens went because where I lived at Spring Street there were no air raid shelters,I was in a flat. I had to get up, get Tony, my little boy ready and then had to take him to my mother in laws to look after and it was just across from ICI and then I picked him up at night.
When you talk about the two minute silence and you think about people, your husband would have known people who died in the Second World War did you have any contact with people apart from him that maybe died in the war with him?
I used to be labourer to two prentices. Leonard Allison and another lad and they have died since, and they both worked at ICI.
So you think about the people you worked with in that time?
Yes and other family that has gone. It’s very memorable.