大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Plymouth Library Services on behalf of Douglas Atkinson. The author fully understands the terms and conditions' of the website.

There were fourteen children in our family, seven boys and seven girls. In 1940 I was evacuated to a coal mining village in the Rhonda Valley. I lasted two weeks before I went back to the city.

During 1942 and 1943 air raids in the city increased and in May 1943 our family had an Anderson air raid shelter built in the garden. This was reinforced with earth work and sandbags. One time our house was bombed and there were sixteen of us in the shelter.

We were asked to put a bucket of water outside the front door in case of incendiary bombs and fire. My mother, thinking she was being helpful, filled a bath. The air raid warden running backwards watching for the bomb fell into the bath and got soaked.

Some members of the family were still in the house, including my younger sister who was in bed with pnuemonia and the baby who was eighteen months old. My mother, seeing the raid getting dangerous decided to bring the baby to the shelter. As she stepped outside a bomb dropped onto the house, luckily all the family survived that night.

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