大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War site by a volunteer from 大象传媒 Southern Counties on behalf of John Clifton Holdford and has been added to this site with his permission. John Clifton Holdford fully understands the sites' terms and conditions.

I was evacuated during the war, but I kept running away, so I was eventually allowed to return home to be with my family. I lived in the family home in Tooting with my mother and father, George and Ethel and my sister Doris.

My father bred canaries and he kept them in the loft of the house. There was a large skylight in the roof for this purpose.

In the summer of 1941 we were all in the house when an an air raid took place. After this the Germans were dumping their bombs, before returning home. The roof of our house took a direct hit and was completely blown off. We all escaped unscathed, but all the canaries escaped from the roof and flew off. My father was very upset.

We didn't expect to see any of them again, but a few days later when my fathers friend visited our house, he indicated that he had seen several canaries in the roof of the house. Sure enough, some of the canaries had returned home.

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