Nora's story

Life took a lot of turns for us. My dad was a miner. We were really poor. Everything that we had was used completely. We were never allowed to waste anything. Everything that we owned was too precious. I remember my mother always saying “waste not, want not.” It’s still true today. We worked very hard.

My dad and brothers would come home from spending the day down in the pit. In darkness when they woke up, spent all day down the pit in darkness, and when they left it was dark. I swear my dad and brothers never got to see the sunshine. However, we had a good life. My mother worked very hard. We all did.

You knew your neighbours back in those days. We were a community. Everyone would help each other out. If there were someone that was sick, they would be looked after. If someone died, everyone came together to help the family. We did things together. Not like these days where you don’t even speak to the person that you share a wall with.

My husband and I were both in the forces during WWII. It was tough; we spent a lot of time apart. I would never want to go through that again, but it was a very long time ago. I remember a lot of Canadian fighter pilots in those days.

We didn’t travel much after the war. Occasionally we went to the seaside.