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At the time of the Plymouth Blitz my parents lived at 21 Buckingham Place, a terrace overlooking Millbay Docks.

When one night the siren sounded, William and Lavinia made their way to the public shelter under the road outside the house. During the air raid the adults were aware that something significant had happened, there was a roaring sound and the shelter filled with foul air and dust.

It soon became apparent that we were trapped, something was blocking the entrance. Those that were able began to shout for help. After what seemed like hours a rescue party arrived. The first to break through were two doctors from the Royal Navy Hospital in Stonehouse who remarked they were amazed to find us alive. We were led to safety climbing over what my mother describes as a mountain of rubble. My parents soon realised that the rubble on top of the shelter was the house belonging to my father’s sister, who lived next door and that our house was a burning inferno and totally destroyed.

The awful realisation of knowing that we had nothing left in the world, only the nightclothes we were wearing, must have been a terrible moment for my parents. We were given emergency shelter for the night. The following morning someone gave us clothes and temporary accommodation was found until my father could arrange for Lavinia and the children to travel to Lancashire where his sister lived. We returned to Plymouth eleven months later in time for me to start school.

The journey north has remained with my mother all through the years, a crowded train with no vacant seats. Lavinia with her three children of 4, 2 and 10 months stood or sat on the suitcase in the corridor almost all the way to Lancashire. Only once throughout that terrible journey did anyone show any compassion for her plight, a sailor offered her his seat for just as long as it took to feed her baby.

My parents’ story is that of endurance under very difficult circumstances. The rescue was a miracle in itself. That dreadful night of the Blitz had changed the course of our lives for ever.

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