'Bombs were falling but we were there': Plymouth women remember WW2
Watch Jacquie Bird's report here.
There is nothing better than learning about history from those who have actually lived it.
For Remembrance Day this year, three Plymouth women have shared their memories of living in the city during the Second World War.
From being bombed out of their homes to walking the streets of the city to discover whether members of their family had survived, Beryl, Pat and Barbara's insights into those war years in their home city of Plymouth are crystal clear.
Barbara Finch was evacuated from her home close the Devonport Dockyard before her house was bombed.
She described how she and her mother had been with family at Notter Bridge. When her mother returned to Plymouth their home had been wiped out.
Barbara had been in the city when her school was bombed though.
She said: "Our school was in the bottom of the playground and I can see our headmaster now, Mr Cornish, and he was due for retirement, but of course, they couldn't retire because they didn't have teachers to replace them when they were taking men for the war.
"And I can see him now, standing in the playground crying when our school got bombed and the one behind burned. And I've never forgotten that."
Beryl Darch had to walk from Pasley Street in Stoke to Tamerton Foliot with her family on the day her house got bombed - a distance of more than five miles.
She described how in many bombed buildings the only thing left was the chimney breast, but it often still had ornaments on the mantelpiece. She said it felt like it was just yesterday.
"You never forget it," she told ITV News.
But there were good times too. Pat Fish explained how there were dances on the Hoe every weekend with military bands.
She said: "Lady Astor used to come and all of Plymouth used to go up and dance and waltz, til about midnight.
"Every weekend they always had a band up there, I suppose to cheer us up and keep us going.....the bombs were falling but we were there!"
Plymouth was decimated in the Blitz. Buildings throughout the city centre razed to the ground.
But the ladies said that did not stop the shopkeepers. Within weeks, stalls had been set up in Plymouth Market by Marks & Spenser, Spooners and Woolworths.
Regular market traders had moved out into the street outside to what was to become known as Tinpan Alley.
"Oooh it was lovely, I loved Tinpan Alley!" said Pat.
But these memories are of course tinged with sadness. A Royal Naval widow herself, Pat described the importance of Remembrance.
"I used to see those ships go out, come back in, limped in, blown to blazes but they patched them up and then the next day send them off again.
"But it was somebody's husband, somebody's you know, father, I could never forget that. As long as I live."