- Contributed by听
- billcop
- People in story:听
- William Copping, Violet Copping
- Location of story:听
- Pimlico, London
- Background to story:听
- Civilian
- Article ID:听
- A4048012
- Contributed on:听
- 10 May 2005
I was six years old when war broke out.
In the latter part of the war we lived in Cumberland street. On one particular day the siren had sounded so I went to play in my friends shelter in the house opposite, which was situated under the pavement in the
refurbished coal cellar.
My mother was at work,as a postwoman, but my friends mother had just returned home with her next door neighbour. They parted at the top of the steps after the neighbour had turned down the offer of joining us.
As his mother entered the cellar there was a blinding blue flash. We were all blown everywhere and the cellar was filled with choking dust.
We eventually found out that we were all alive but buried. The only way out was through the escape holes which linked all the cellars in the street. Thankfully we emerged safely at the end of the street where the rescue teams had arrived.
My mother cried like a baby when she rushed home and found me safe. Our flat was a disaster, and my friends house was a heap of rubble.
Apparently it was the result of a V2 which landed in the back gardens between two streets of houses.
I saw my friends neighbour lifted from the rubble, she was dead.
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