大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Louise Angell of the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Radio Derby, on behalf of Doreen Lee. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

I remember coming out of St. Aulkmunds Church in Derby one day when I was about 10 years old. A little boy ran up to me and said 'we're at war'. I remember feeling shocked and realised that life would be different now.

I had an aunt who lived in Sinfin. I went to see her one day and saw the smoke screens for the first time. They were tall drums and smoke would come out of them and cover Derby to disguise factories like Rolls Royce. The top of this was camoflaged and painted. I remember a bomb dropped on the Bliss factory (I think they were an engineering firm). We lived nearby and the windows of the house were blown out and I was thrown across the room.

When the war ended I pushed up the window and shouted at people to let them know. We went into town to go dancing.

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