Oral History Interview - Emma Dunning
Object
Audio-visual items
Production date
28.11.2011
Object number
2013.105
Physical Description
Audio interview with Emma Dunning. She discusses 1.Childhood memories (Hackney). 2.Hackney in WW2. 3.V-1 flying bomb (doodlebug).
Associated Person
Dunning, Emma (Subject of)
Material
Digital file (.mp3)
On display?
No
Inscription
“Well my dad was…my dad used to work on the railway, with the horses, you know, cart and horses. And then when the war come up, 1914 war, my dad went in the army. And when he come out the army, I think he done about three months work and he was out of work, they didn’t want any horses, they got little private motors to take the things out. They used to drive the horses and take all the parcels out, but now they got rid of all the horses, course it meant my father was out of work. ‘Cause he didn’t know other trades. And he was out of work from…19…when he come out the army…1918…about 1920 and he was out of work right up until this last war. That’s it, and my mum had to work hard, and I was sent to…I had to scrub a house out from top to bottom for two bob a week, that’s what I had to do, and go there every day, cause my mum was short of money. She used to rely on that two shillings.”
“You want the kids now to do it - all the children had to go to work, the youngsters, well, to help out with their parents. They was nearly all out of work, the men. I don’t know how my mother survived. Good job she only had two to keep.”
“My little girl, she was three, she was nearly three when the war started. Well I think she was two, I think, in the June, when the war started in September. Oh yeah. And we lived in Ballance Road then. Had a house in Ballance Road. That’s where I got bombed out. Then my husband was called up, and went to Norwich, and he got me a place down there, and we all stayed in Norwich for a couple of years, while the war was on, took my little girl.”
“We was here when the doodle…of course we used to hear them coming along, and me and my daughter and John used to run out to the shelter in the garden…and it used to stop, that’s when we were frightened it was going off. Then all of a sudden it’d go a little way longer and then go ‘BANG’. Once it passed our heads it was alright. They used to be terrible them doodle bugs.”
“You want the kids now to do it - all the children had to go to work, the youngsters, well, to help out with their parents. They was nearly all out of work, the men. I don’t know how my mother survived. Good job she only had two to keep.”
“My little girl, she was three, she was nearly three when the war started. Well I think she was two, I think, in the June, when the war started in September. Oh yeah. And we lived in Ballance Road then. Had a house in Ballance Road. That’s where I got bombed out. Then my husband was called up, and went to Norwich, and he got me a place down there, and we all stayed in Norwich for a couple of years, while the war was on, took my little girl.”
“We was here when the doodle…of course we used to hear them coming along, and me and my daughter and John used to run out to the shelter in the garden…and it used to stop, that’s when we were frightened it was going off. Then all of a sudden it’d go a little way longer and then go ‘BANG’. Once it passed our heads it was alright. They used to be terrible them doodle bugs.”
