Arts, Entertainment and Media

A Night at the pictures

We had two Cinema's in Norton, an old one called the Avenue and a nice new one called the Modern. We...

Church Search

Another incident I recall was regarding Wiveliscombe Church, built circa 1790, where there was a huge...

My Broadcast to the Forces

On arrival at the broadcasting studio, I found out that the band, Geraldo and his orchestra, singers...

The Radio, Newspapers and Comics

After the war I learned that the German Ministry Of Propaganda had even suggested that the sound...

The Case of the Frightened Lady

I met my cousin Molly, straight out of school, and she she took me to the cinema. We could see flames...

Early signs of VE Day

As soon as we were in place, along with as many other airmen as could be gathered together at very short...

The Merry Melody Makers Concert Party

Food was very short and we had, so often, to rely on the Merchant Navy bringing food from abroad and facing...

Wartime Memories in Long Buckby

My next vivid memory must date to the autumn after VE-Day when my Aunt Grace, my father's youngest...

Ben Cumming's War - Appendix: Lyrics to "The D-Day Dodgers"

Eighth Army skyvers and the Yanks, Sixth Armoured Divi with their tanks For we are the D-Day Dodgers, the...

Bristol Wartime Entertainers

We'd get there in either normal vehicles or army trucks - that was until Mr Bennett persuaded the...

A Little Ditty

One thing I rememebr, a little ditty, sung to the tune of one of a song from 'Annie Get Your Gun'....

Doreen's Sheffield Blitz

We had our car parked there and my father opened the passenger door for me and put in my seat, he then...

Classical Music in Wartime

I was in the Sixth Form and a Senior Prefect. I even possessed a special prefects’ school cap,...

Entertaining the troops

One day there was a show on, for sergeants and officers, and I was sitting in the NAAFI with my friend from...

Wartime Memories of the Theatre

For the first two years or so I toured around England in several different revues with many well known...

Manchester Blitz: Evacuation and My Blind Doll

FRom my bedroom window I looked out to the famous Kinder Scout pass - a very different view from my bedroom...

Pioneering Radio Days

It also, I had understood, sent out a fake programme across Europe, called Soldaten Sender Calais, with...

Kathleen Hilditch's Wartime Theatre Memories - Make do and Mend

This ‘chain mail’ was made of knitted string sprayed with silver paint: it must have been in...

Wartime Entertainment

My childhood was spent in Stockport, Cheshire, which is now part of Greater Manchester... We were to become...

Wartime memories

I chose to stay in Ipswich, and went to live with friends... While living with my friends, a lot of time...

Waterloo Sunset

All the boys in 'our gang', nineteen to twenty-one year olds couldn't wit for their call-up...

Glenn Millers Dolls House

Working at the BBC meant my grandfather got to know a number of the personalities and celebrities of the...

Kathleen Hilditch's Wartime Theatre Memories - The Buxton Festival

When war became imminent I was sharing a caravan parked in a field about a mile from Buxton where the Old...

Life in ENSA

I then joined the only all girl show on ENSA and we went on tour for 6 months to Northern Ireland,...

British Cargo Steamer City of Shanghai

On May 10th 1941 the Cargo Steamer City of Shanghai on which my dad`s brother Harry was the Quartermaster,...

6 June 1944 BBC Record Chart

Vera Lynn, Bing Crosby, Adelaide Hall, Glen Miller, Judy Garland and the countless dance bands became our...