大象传媒

It was the last air raid on Cardiff and as a three year old with asthma I had got one of the childhood diseases, chickenpox. We lived about a mile from the Royal Ordnance Factory and when the sirens went, my mother, worried about my asthma decided not to take me into the Anderson in the garden as it was pretty damp, so we ended up in the living room under the table. I remember the noise of the aircraft and a loud bang, my mother moved to shelter behind the sofa near the door to the hallway. The second explosion was closer and and the glass in the windows shattered and we moved again, this time into the hall and into the space below the staircase.
After this I dont remember anything untill there was a man's voice calling "anybody there?" My mother must have shouted back because the next memory I have is of a hole of light in the middle of the pitch darkness and then the silhouette of a head with a helmet on it. My only other memory of that day was the gift fromsomeone nearby of a big stuffed toy, a spotted leopard who became an inseperable friend for many years.
Oh, and the final details. The third bomb in the stick had scored a direct hit on our Anderson shelter and the only thing left of the house was a pile of rubble with one small space where the collapsing stair case had come to rest on the debris fromthe wall that had supported it.
If I close my eyes I can still see that room and the glass shattering and most of all the helmeted head, no face, just a silhouette against the light, oh yes and "spotty!"

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