大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site on behalf of Doris Hutchison and has been added with her permission...

When Doris was a child she lived in Birmingham with her mother, father and sister. Birmingham was regularly and heavily bombed and when they went out for a walk they took their umbrellas with them,as they thought that by putting them up they could shield themselves from shrapnel.

One night the family were in the Anderson shelter in the garden when it received a direct hit. The bomb made a huge crater and they all fell into it. Mum was at the bottom of the pile and was badly injured. Doris and her sister escaped injury, but father had broken bones and bad concussion. The house hadn't been hit and the fire wardens got Dad into it, only to have a piano nearly fall on him. Both parents were taken to different hospitals, mum stayed in hers for 4 months. Doris and her sister didn't know where their parents had gone and weren't told until four days later when the vicar came to tell them. During this time they had to cope on their own.

At 17 Doris tried to join up only to be told to come back when she was 18. She then joined the WAAF and became the biggest flirt on the campsite. She became a flight mechanic and learned to strip an engine down. She also recalls driving a lorry full of high explosive through the Mersey Tunnel, complete with police escort.

She met her husband to be when she was already going out with a yank, who she had intended to marry. She was obviously swept of her feet as she dumped the yank and married her husband after just six weeks at St. Marks in Blackpool.

She was in the WAAF for two and a half years, leaving to have a family.

During the war she experienced the London blitz, the Liverpool blitz and the Birmingham blitz surviving them all.

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