[jamesicus]

NOTE: There is now an enormous reference bank available relating to this era in the form of books, VHS/DVD tapes, Internet Web Pages, etc., and so in many instances it would be redundant of me to offer general information. My intention is to summarize the impact of the momentous events of WWII on my family, friends and the East Lancashire region as I remember it.

Soon after the start of WWII my father got a job with Joseph Lucas (like many large manufacturers they had split up and relocated their operations away from major industrial cities) in the Burnley Wood Top Works as a metallurgical Inspector. It was classified as an essential war effort job -- we didn't know until much later in the war that Joseph Lucas was developing and producing the Whipple Jet engine. My father worked there throughout the war and served in the Home Guard. Because of his work demands (long hours) and Home Guard service my father was not home much in the early war years. My mother had lost her weaving job just before the start of the war in 1939 and stayed at home until she eventually got a war effort job at Lupton & Place, Burnley -- I believe in 1942.



James