大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's war site by Darren Ellis of Wakefield Libraries and Information Services on behalf of Muriel Blythman and has benn added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's tems and conditions.

I have never forgotten the morning of September 3rd 1939. All our neighbours were in our house, we were the only family with a wireless. War was declared everyone was crying, all the children wondered what was wrong, we were soon to find out. Our back garden was dug up to put an air raid shelter in it - the rest of the garden was used to grow vegetables. Dad used to go to work, come home, have a meal, say goodnight to us children, then go to do Air Raid Warden duties.

I had three older brothers who didn't go to war straight away, they were exempted until they were twenty one years old. They were working apprenticeships. They used to help the wardens out delivering despatch messages on their bicycles. Then the first and third one went to be soldiers and the second one went to be a silor. It was a very sad time not knowing what was happening to them.

One dark night the air raid sirens went. mum dashed upstairs, which she did every time the sirens went, brought all us children downstairs, put the leaves up on the table and pushed it towards the middle wall of the room. She used to say it was a safer place to be than the air raid shelter. We were wrapped in blankets and told to lay down and go back to sleep. But this night there was too much noise, then we heard a funny whistling, buzz, buzz, sound. It was bombs dropping. There were six on this night. The enemy was trying to bomb the railway lines and the ammunition factory that wasn't far away. They had demolished a house but the bomb did not explode and the army came and dealt with it. We were all excited the next day as one of the planes had crashed in the beck field, they had caught the pilot as he had parachuted out of the plane. We children were allowed to go and get bits off it. I was lucky I managed to get a big piece of parachute silk, which was duly washed, and I managed to make a blouse out of it eventually.

I am pleased to say my brothers all came home safe and sound, but not so some of the boys in our street.

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