French version here.
When I left school I was sent to work at the Osram factory,
packing radio valves. It wasn't what I wanted to do, but we
didn't have any choice in those days, you were just told.
I married my husband; he had a job delivering tanks and he
was often away. He was away when my first baby was born:
that was a bad time.
I was three days in labour - at home of course, no nice safe hospital deliveries in those days - and the midwife when she came on the second day had brought a gas and air mixture to help me with the pain, but it just broke when she got it out. Just fell apart in her hands. Not much use to me.
The baby was born dead. Exhausted, poor little thing. I was shattered too of course, and the next day after they had taken the baby away and my Mum had gone home to get the tea there was an air raid near us. There were a couple of bombs fell near enough to blow my windows out and shake a bit of the ceiling plaster over me, sitting there in my bed, in my room, bawling my eyes out, all alone.
I survived of course, didn't I, otherwise I wouldn't be
sitting here telling you the story. And my husband survived
too, although he was delivering tanks right through France
and Belgium until the end of the war. We were lucky really,
compared to many. I can still get upset about my poor baby
though, even after all these years.
