大象传媒

During the War, I was in St Thomas School and I remember that we once had an air raid whilst I was there. We ran to Wallace road. I could just make it to what we called the slip, where, at the end of the railings, there was a little cutting out of the houses. We had so little time. I managed to reach the top of Morris Lane where a lady let me use her shelter, rather than see me running through the streets.

After hearing a story about the night watchman during world war two, it brought to mind memories of those days. One of them was a time when the air raid warning sounded and a gentleman, who was an air raid warden himself, encouraged his wife, who was in an unlit room to get dressed quickly. Naturally, he did not put on a light, (due to the approaching air raid), and waited for her to dress herself... This she did, but when she was ready to leave, she said, 鈥淚 can鈥檛 move. I can鈥檛 move鈥� 鈥淒on鈥檛 worry鈥�, he said; as he carefully covered her with a blanket, and carried her outside to the ARP station. But when they took the blanket off at the ARP, they found the poor woman had put her two legs in the one leg of her bloomers!!

Dad was at High Street station when a land mine fell in Pottery Street. He had shrapnel wound which failed to heal for four years. After carrying many badly injured to the ARP and Red Cross stations he lost his nerve to sleep at home. For several months he slept in the shelters at High Street. The shelter was under the station in High Street, where you could see the arches under the station. To get help get his nerve back and get him to use our shelter I used to sleep in our shelter for company. It was all a very worrying time. A neighbour of ours was killed on Swansea Docks by a machine gun on an aeroplane. He had a lovely wife and two sons.

I lived in a house in Wallace Road; one in a block of five houses. Four bombs were dropped in my area, one in the hill, one on my house, one in Grenfell Park Road and one at the Forward Movement Chapel. The one on the hill didn鈥檛 explode, so that was exploded later. Our house was the end house. The bomb was so fierce that one floor seemed to wave in the blast. My mother was an invalid and insisted on staying in the house sitting between the piano and the airing cupboard. But it was getting so bad, that my father picked her up and carried her outside to the shelter, when the incendiaries were coming down thick and fast. When they were only halfway up the back my Mother told Dad to put her down and see to the incendiaries. We don鈥檛 know to this day what happened. The bomb exploded and my Father was blown into the shelter! My Mother must have crawled in. They then walked over the hill to my sister鈥檚 intended mother-in-law and stayed there the night. We then had new accommodation because some people moved out of the area because of the raids.

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