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Coventry Centre Wiped Out

I was married in Coventry in 1938 and then the war started and we could hear them all coming to Birmingham for a long time and then if they had anything left to drop they dropped them on Coventry but the night of the blitz it started about 10pm and I had been at work all day and I worked in the centre of Coventry, right in the very centre.

I was just in an office, Huxley and Watson. My husband used to take me down to his brother’s house because him and his brother were both firemen because they were all more or less always on duty. I was with my sister-in-law and niece of about 15/16. She’d just started work. For a long time we just had a gay old time. The young girl and I used to sit under the dining table as a bit of protection and then sister-in-law was a bit on the big side and it was only a half door cupboard under the stairs — she used to get in there and no-one else could get in. So that was our protection. There was an air raid shelter outside but we preferred to stay in the house.

But one time we walked out and we saw what we thought was a man and a parachute come down but we didn’t know about the Germans. It just passed over the top and we watched its progress and then all of a sudden just a great big awful flash and it took a whole street of beautiful houses: Prince of Wales Road, Coventry was absolutely shattered.

Our door window glass went out and by lunchtime my husband and brother in law were home and they just packed us up and sent us back home to our families. We didn’t see the destruction that happened in the middle of the town as we were taken away. My husband got a little bit of leave and he came up for me about a fortnight after. The first thing we did was walk round and the lovely cathedral was practically all gone, it was really awful. Where I worked was raised to the ground absolutely. The town centre was absolutely wiped out and that’s about it because of course they didn’t give up altogether but we never had it as bad as that.

What used to upset me was that it went on for a long time and then on the bus going to work you’d look out of the window and you’d see a woman with maybe two kids trailing with a pram piled up with all their belongings. Dreadful, dreadful sight. Terrible.

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