大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/大象传媒 Radio Nottingham on behalf of Mr Ashby with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

In 1939 I was eleven years old. I had two brothers of seven and five and we lived in a small rented house in Ilkeston, Derbyshire. My father was a steam crane driver at Stanton Ironworks which was one of the largest employers in the area. They made spun iron pipes for sewers etc. There was also a large concrete plant where they made concrete pipes and sections for the London underground system, plus a large plant with five furnaces where the iron was made for bomb cases, tank turrets and munitions.

Dad worked at the concrete plant and sometimes he would take me with him and let me ride on the footplate and watch him loading trucks and lorries. When the War started Dad bought two concrete pipes six feet in diameter by six feet long and half buried them, covering them with the soil he'd dug out. A door and six steps down were added and a couple of benches and an oil lamp made up the furnishings. Dad said we would be safe in there. What he hadn't thought about was the weather because every time it rained the shelter was flooded and I can't remember ever using it. Then one night there was an air-raid on Stanton Ironworks and my Dad said we should all go accross to the Aldreds who lived opposite. We could see the searchlights sweeping the skyand hear the German planes and the sound of anti-aircraft guns firing at them. We hadn't been there long when we heard a crash on the roof. We were terrified as we could still see the searchlights and hear the guns and we couldn't understand what the crash on the roof had been. It seemed hours before the all-clear sounded and we were able to see that it was caused by an incendiary bomb that had hit the roof and bounced off into the garden without detonating. We were very lucky it wasn't high explosive. Stanton was lucky that night as none of the bombs hit but some fell in the fields close by and killed some cows.

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