A woman from Barry that was a teenager in WW2 remembers life then

99-year-old Margaret Pike used to work for her father delivering bread around Barry to help feed locals during the war era.

She was 14 years old when war broke out in 1939 and was the first woman to join two generations of a bakehouse run by her male relatives.

This is what she remembers.

War era Margaret Pike (Image: Melissa Morris) “My father was a Baker, and he had his own bakehouse business. ‘Davies the Baker’ on the corner of Regent Street and Woodlands Road and he worked for his father and his father before him.

“I came into it in 1939 when war broke out and when a man that worked for my father was called up to go to the war, I was 14 and you could leave school. I went in with my dad and I worked with him.

“I was working for my father, which was a reserved occupation and I was doing a job what was considered to be a man’s job.

“It was just he and I. Dad used to get up about 5 or 6 o’clock in the morning and I came down at 9 o’clock and by then the bread was out of the oven, and I’d deliver it to 100 houses in Barry.”

99-year-old Margaret Pike (Image: Melissa Morris) Margaret remembers the strict wartime rules in place. She said: “There were no lights in the night at all, no streetlights and no lights on your vehicles (mind there weren’t many vehicles) and it was just dim lights with side lights we had to drive with because of air raids. All the curtains in everyone’s houses were blacked.”

Margaret passed her driving test at 17 and was able to drive the bread van to make deliveries for her father.

Margaret's bread tins from the war era (Image: Melissa Morris) She continued: “I was delivering bread probably until 5 or 6 o’clock at night and it was difficult to get around with just side lights on the van.”

Barry was a hot bed of activity during this period, Margaret explained: “There was a camp down on Sully Road and that was an American camp with American soldiers. There was a camp on Port Road.

“They were waiting for the invasion of Europe, there was an awful lot the warships in Barry in the dock and outside in the Bristol Channel. For a week or so there was this fleet of ships with soldiers on ready to go to free Europe.”

Times were difficult for the people of Barry during this period and other families were not as fortunate as Margaret's.

“I’ve got a memory of one family, and they lived in a house on Kendrick Road, and I can see this lady crying that one of her sons had been killed, she had just had the news and that was number 1 Kendrick Road,” said Margaret.

She explained what life was like for a teenager back then: “There were no boys around, they were all in the army, it all started when I was 14 and I just grew up with it.

“It went on for 6 years and it was just normal living. When a boy was 17/18, he was called up - even my brother was, but he couldn’t go because he suffered badly with asthma.”

However, with the end of the war times happier times arrived: “I remember we the people of Barry had a celebration down on the square and everybody turned up including a band and the square was full, and everyone was celebrating,” said Margaret.