大象传媒

Although only young at the outbreak of the war I have many memories, outstanding in my recall was an event in 1941.
We lived in a back to back house and persued the usual practice of a Friday night bath in the living room . When war broke out my mother and mrs Crocket arranged for us to have our bath at her house and if the alarm went we would all go to their Anderson shelter,
On a particular Friday my mother decided that if the alarm went that night we would go to our own shelter.
having gone to bed in the attic with my brother for some strange reason I bolted the door,we were both well asleep when the siren went and of course didn't hear it or our mother calling to us, she then had to climb two flights of stairs to "locked" door,after much banging and no doubt cursing she eventually got some response but no immediate action, after some little time explaining the urgecy of the situation we began the descent, halfway down we all heard an explosion and decided that was "pretty close!"
Our exit from the house was directly on to the footpath , as we left to go the shelter we noted an unusual "heap" across the road and remarked on it , we ushered up the entry way up to the backyard and found our way blocked by a sheet of corrugated iron that was identified as a piece of a shelter having moved it aside we continued to our shelter.
The next morning the Heap" was identified as the Anderson shelter that on any other Friday night we would have been in.
The shelter had taken a direct hit and was lifted with contents over the three story buildings to the opposite side of the road from our house ,a distance of probably eighty to ninety yards. All four occupants were killed , that included Mrs Crocket, Mrs Davies and two other neighbours , one of Mrs Davies sons was killed by the blast as he approached the shelter. The shelter of the neighbours who were killed was sited about 12 feet from the Crokets and was not touched .

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