大象传媒

In July 1939 I had my 11th birthday, my father worked for an American oil company and as war became imminent my parents considered sending my brother (14) and me to stay with colleagues in the States. Neither of us wanted to go and whilst discussions were going on one of the ships carrying British children to States/Canada was torpedoed and many were drowned - some from the North East - so my parents sent my brother to friends in the Lake district and I went to Bamburgh, together with my older sister (17 1/2) but I was very homesick and was back by christmas '39 for the duration of the war. My sister was called up for the army (ATS).
Life went on almost as normal, I was the only one at home and when there was an air raid my mother and I went under the stairs for protection. It was some time before we got our indoor Morrison shelter made of a steel top withsteel mesh surrounds which could have taken the weight of a roof although we did not geth the opportunity to test that theory!. There were many houses destroyed and my schooland our church were hit by Land Mines, more powerful than bombs. I was upset when I went to school and found a dead hedgehog lying on it's back quite dead in a crater. The school was not badly damaged and lessons proceeded as normal. Daytime raids were not as frequent as night time raids but one which still affects me was a raid at lunchtime when I wasat home. The sirens sounded and mum and I went under the stairs and then the drone of many plane engines became louder and louder, quite terrifying and for the first time I felt my mothers fear as she held me in her arms. How long the planes flew over us I do not know but no bombs fell on Newcastle, apparently the German planes were going elsewhere and had come from Norway, all 1,000 of them! To this day I do not know what their target was. plymouth was completely destroyed as was Coventry but I doubt if either of those targets could have been reached (fuel wise) from Norway.I still dislike loud noises and low flying aircraft. I did not go back to school that day.

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