大象传媒

This story was submitted to the website by Karolina Kopiec from 大象传媒 GMR Action Desk on behalf of Flo Russell and has been added to the site with their permission.

I was about 21 and married at the beginning of the war. It was 1940 and Christmas, they had closed the Theatres, but Manchester Palace Theatre was still open and we booked and went to see the show. During the show the sirens went and we had to evacuate the Theatre- it was the Manchester Blitz. We had to go into the old brick air raid shelter, and it was crammed full, so we decided to go on to another and walked on towards home. We walked and walked and it seemed as though the flames from the Blitz were following us. A policeman stopped us and asked what we were doing out, he took us into his shelter and gave us a cup of tea and eventually we walked again and got home with the blitz left behind us.
Another time a few years later, my husband by this time had gone in the forces and was serving abroad, I was by myself with my little boy, and they dropped a land mine on Heaton Morris goods yard, and all my windows were blown out so I went round the corner to my Father鈥檚 house. When the sirens went I had to get my little boy up, put him in his siren suit and run round to my Mothers as she had a shelter.
On V.E. day I was in Liverpool, my husband had been wounded at D-day and had been sent back to U.K., and when he was convalescing I went over to Liverpool to visit and on VE day I was pushing him in a wheel chair to see the sights they were going mad waving flags etc.
Before he was in Liverpool, he was in hospital in Shalfesbury in Dorset, and I used to go down to visit him, which a very bad journey from Manchester via London to Dorset. In London the people were all sleeping in the tubes so someone said it was easier to go via Bristol, but the connection was bad and there was no train to Shaflesbury and we finished up sleeping all night in a fish wagon, but we made it even though we smelt horrible, I was travelling with my sister.
In Stockport on VE day celebrations everything was lit up, the Town Hall and they had an illumination train going round the town.

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