Norma grew up during the war and was an evacuee. She experienced the blitz, as a little girl running around the garden trying to save a stray kitten from a tree, before going into the air-raid shelter.

She was evacuated to Camberley and lived with a very old fashion old lady, who was very religious and strict. From here she ran away with a friend, walking all the way to Stains, where they found they had enough money for a train ticket home to her eldest sisters House, Edna.  Mum's house had been bombed in the blitz.  They were able to return to the house but it got bombed again.  Her sister Ina, refused to go into the shelter and ended up covered in the fine dust from the ceiling. These were the V2s which powdered the mortar between the bricks so you could see through the walls.

During her life, she always said that this was a very unhappy time and didn't like to dwell on WW2 and never watched anything on TV about it.

Norma lost father her during war years, but despite the trauma of war she excelled at school and won a scholarship for grammar school. Beckingham Girls Grammar school. Choosing science as one of her subjects, which was the seedling of her career as she went on the be a State Registered Laboratory Scientific Officer.

In 1947 she left school with 7 GSEs, much to the old school mistresses surprise! (she was picked on and humiliated for not having correct school uniform as her poor Mum was struggling to keep family after father died – you had to beg the snooty rich ladies who did work for charity in the days before benefit system were put in place and her Mum walked out being too proud after a being humiliated by these ladies)

Starting her adult life after the war, she enjoyed dancing with her sister Ina, jitterbugging wearing: out the carpet at home.