We arrived in Stainforth and lived in Haggs Wood. We pushed three old caravans together and this was home for the next few years. Life was very hard as there was no water or lighting just oil lamps and candles. There was an old iron stove with an oven which was fuelled by coal and wood and this was also our only source of heat. I used to walk four times a day to the nearest water pump which was about half a mile away with a wooden bucket to collect the water for drinking and cooking.

There were no toilets and dad dug a deep hole near to the caravan and put some old doors around it and one for the roof, and you sat on a wooden pole over the hole. That was it. One day I slipped in, waist high and dad had to pull me out.

Mr Allcock and his wife had the smallholding next door and he rigged up a handrail around the toilet for us. He was a lovely old man and used to let me help him on his smallholding. He had pigs and chickens and grew all sorts of veg and he used to let mum have a bath in the bungalow once a week.

My dad worked at Stainforth Colliery and did the day shift one week and the night shift the next. Woe betide anyone who woke him up so I used to stay outside of the caravan in case mum needed me to run any errands. I loved playing outside and all around was countryside for miles. I knew every leaf and blade of grass, that was my world.

I will never forget the first time I went to school in the village. I was introduced as the boy from London, and they were told to make me welcome. That lasted about a week, until they found out how mouthy I was, and then the clouts started. I learned fast and ran fast! We were called "gypos" and "squatters". I befriended a nice lad called Gordon Chapman and we did everything together, he was a really good friend. When we left the village years later I kept in touch with him until he went in the RAF and I didn't hear from him again.

One day dad came home with a big black dog and it bought light into my life. We called it Prince and he was half Labrador and half retriever. Right from the start we hit it off. Dad bought it as a guard dog and he was a good one, he would bite anybody! My mum was afraid of him at the start but they became good friends, the only one he did not like was my dad! I lost count the times he bit the old man when he came home from work in the dark from the pit. He would never have the dog indoors, just outside and we had a big old shed full of coal and he made him sleep in that on some old coats.

Another time he came home with a Greyhound. I was 10 by now and right outside our caravan was the race track, not 20 yards away. We would get up early every morning and put the dog through its paces, getting ready for the Saturday race. It was a good dog and it used to win.

We stayed in Stainforth for nearly 3 years, and when the war was over we went back to Croydon to live in lodgings and dad went into bricklaying.

I still remember my years in Stainforth but they were hard times and the memory will stay with me forever.

Wallace Booker - aged 73