大象传媒

I was eight when the war started. When I heard the sirens in the night my mother would come and fetch me and I would put on my coat and go to the community shelter of ten or twelve families from the terrace houses. I got told to move quickly and stay by the wall whilst you hear the guns being fired. I used to collect shrapnel and you would take it to school and everyone would be envious. I lived about 60 yards from the road track and railway, which were followed to bomb areas and factories. My father fought in WWI so he joined the Armed Guard and my brother was on important work as a pattern maker for aircraft parts, so he also joined the Armed Guard. He was eighteen or nineteen at the beginning of the war, so when they were on nights they would wander around and found a stick of bombs unexploded in the railway. The scariest experience of mine in the war was a land mine was dropped in the next street to ours. Fortunately, it did not explode, or else we would not have had a house.

When I was about nine, the most memorable experience I had was when me and my friends were on a playing field and three mosquito fighter bombers were practising dog fighting, attacking and avoiding each other, one got too close to another and clipped the other one which caused the aircraft to come down. Me and these other lads raced after it and when we got to the site it came down on, the aircraft was in between the gardens of two houses and burning, so no one could get near. No one could help then and the crew were still in the plane, it was a very sad thing to see two people in there unable to escape.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Anastasia Travers a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of Norman Skidmore and has been added to the site with his permission. Norman Skidmore fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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