How did the Second World War affect the lives of the people of South Wales?

Source 3 is about a man called Mr Mansell and his personal account of one instance of World War 2. He says that he was with a messenger lad and a bombing raid occurred. They both tried to get the men out of the wreck and out of the 48 they save 42. Personal accounts are good because they are facts because they were there at the time. There are limitations though, some people might over exaggerate or over the years they might have forgot some parts and added some of their own. Another personal account is from Mrs Jenkinsin source 4 . She says that after the funeral of her brothers wife she went to the cemetery to see the grave. she said that when she got there there were five or six open graves and there were soldiers diggingmore. When she asked them who they were for they said they were for the next blitz. This shows the attitudes of some of the soldiers and what they thought. This has the same benifits and limitations that source 3 has. Source 5 is an illustration of the two shelters. They are taken out of a history textbook called 'The Home Front' which was published in 1988. This is quite useful because they must be based around the real thing because they would not print them otherwise.

Source 6 is a brilliant photograph of how much the bombs damaged buildings. It is a photo of Llandaff Cathedral which was damaged in 1941. There are mainly only good things about photographs because they show the exact view of how it was then. There is a limitation though because photos can be airbrushed and therefore changed to how the person would want them to look.

Because of the bombing people were worried when their loved ones were late arriving home and especially when there was a air raid while they were out. Source 7 shows this well because it is a personal account of a schoolgirl from Newbridge. Her mum and friend were in Cardiff and there was an air raid. they arrived home and she told her daughter that they were boarding the bus when the siren sounded. The plane followed them until the driver turned out the lights and they lost the plane when they got into the valleys. Again this is a good source because it is a personal account.

Source 8 is another photo, this one of two streets flattened in Cardiff, again the affects of the bombing raids.

Because of the bombing raids, people wer issued with some safety gear to protect them selves. Women and children had to carry a gas mask around with themselves all of the time and gas-proofing rooms had to be packed with all the necassary equiptment which includes protective clothing, steel helmets and first aid outfits. Source 9 shows this well because it is a picture of a man with a gas mask on with all the equiptment around it that is needed. It is an advertisement from the London News. It is good because it is a clip out of a paper from the time. Again though it could have been airbrushed to show what they want it too.

People would have been struggling with all of the bombing raids and the added extra of rationing would definalely not have helped. People could not waste anyhting. They could not throw any food away because they would need all that they could get to eat. Source 10 shows this well because it is a personal account of one Phyllis James from Cwmparc. She says that they "could not waste a crumb". This is a good account because she was there at the time and she would know exactly what it was like for everyone else because they all had the same rations. Source 11 and source 12 are pictures of a ration book and a ministry of food advert showing ideas of packed lunches for a week, respectively. Because of all the bombing and the hardship of the food situation it was a good idea that the women and children were evacuated. A lot of people were sent to the countryside, because there were not as many bombing raids as there were in the big cities. Source 13 is a personal account of a boy called Raymond Harris. He was evacuated to a farm in Grosmont, Abergavenny. He really enjoyed it, except for going to school because he says that he thought the teacher did not like English childen. This is a good source because again it is a personal account and then boy was one of the evacuees.

Source 14 is a page from the Daily Mail 1940, it is saying that more children should be evacuated. It is a good source and it has no limitations. It is good because it is the actual page from the paper at the time. All source 15 says is that the Welsh are accepting the children with "open arms". It is a report from the education department that was sent the the paper the Folkstone and Hythe Herald in June 1940.

All source 16 shows is a map of where all of the evacuees went in Wales. Source 17 is another personal account of an evacuee who got sent to Wales, but this evacuee did not enjoy her Welsh experience. She was made to do a lot of chores and she had developed scabies. This is another good source because is shows how life for some evacuees was. Sources 18 and 19 are two pictures. One a photo and one an illustration. Source 18 is a illustration of a boy and a girl in all their equiptment and source 19 is a photo of an evacuated child. Source 18 is good because it shows all of the gear that the evacuees had to wear at all times.

Source 20 is again another personal account of an evacuee who satyed in Wales, this time in Caerleon. This evacuee was a girl called Joan Beal. She didnt seem to enjoy her time in Wales. She says that she had to wake up every morning and wake up the woman that she stayed with so that she could start the fire to boil the kettle. This is a good source again because it shows what life was like for evacuees. They had to do what they got told to do. Some of the people who put the children up were kind and caring but some of them seemed to treat them as slaves.The people who were putting them up didnt know what to think of the children. As source 21 says the children could not bring their slippers because there was no room but the woman thought that they were poor and that they could not afford them. This was only out of a book called 'Carrie's War' but it does give a good example of what the host's might think about the children. It is not useful because it is only a novel.

Source 22 is a government poster with Hitler telling a mother to take her children back to the city, and the children are saying don't do it mother. This is not that useful because it is our government who put out the poster and it might not be what Hitler wanted. It is partly good though because it is from the time. The women had a lot of hard choices to make during the war. If they wern't deciding what they were going to eat for the next week then they were deciding if their children were going to be evacuated. It was a tough time and they got through it well. Women had to get a job during the war and the jobs that they were doing was brilliant. As source 23 says their work "has to be seen to be believed". This was written by Clement Atlee the deputy Prime Minister in 1942 so it is very useful because it is from a government official. It might have some limitations though because they might have made it sound a lot better than it was.

Sources 24 and 25 both talk about how bad the conditions were for the women. They were paid terrible wages (£2.20 weekly, source 25), lack of day nurseries, long working hours and consequant shopping difficuilties and lack of transport. Source 24 is a report sent to Churchill by the government's Labour Reseach Department in 1942. This is really useful because it is an official report that was sent to the Prime Minister. This could not have been tampered so there are no limitations. A year after this report was given to Churchill a report was available for the papers and the public to see. This would be because the government would not like the papers to see the conditions that the women were working under.

Even though they were working under these conditions they had to work to try and get some more money and the figures in the bar chart (source 26) show this. In 1938 there were a lot less people working than there were in 1944. There was a big rise especially in National Government Service. This is a good source because it shows what life was like for women during the war and howw they had to get a job. Source's 27 and 28 are both pictures. Source 27 is a photo of a woman welding in a armament factory. This is good because it shows the sort of jobs that the women had to get during the war. Source 28 is a government poster asking women to go and join the Womens Land Army. This is good because it shows that the government care what the women are doing and it sayd that it is a "healthy, happy job". The women had to do all sorts of jobs and one woman, Margaret Plummer tells us of her life working in the Royal Ordinance Factory (source 29). She had just left her place to talk to the boss and the place went up. Twenty were dead and others badly hurt. She also talks about how the TNT changed the colour of your hair. This is good because it is a first hand account of the dangers in the workplace. The government used a lot of ways to try and get the women to get a job and the main ones were posters. These were effective because a lot of them had funny pictures on them or things that would catch your eye (source 30).

All in all the war affected people in South Wales quite differently. Some women had to go out and get jobs and some of the women in the countryside had to take in evacuees. The bombing in the city destroyed property and also peoples lives. Most people either lost a member of their family or a friend and a lot of people lost everyone and everything. The children did not mind going off to the countryside much because they had the animals to play with and they made new friends. The rationing made people think about what they were eating and what they were throwing out. It made life a lot harder because if you were hungry you might not have been able to have anything because there was nothing to eat.