大象传媒

"Quick" said Mum, shaking me awake. "Hold my skirt and follow me." The dreadful explosions, louder than fireworks. The throb of plane engines, the scream of bombs descending stunned my head.
I stumbled blindly behind mum who was holding my one year old brother in her arms, and had two boys ages seven and six trailing with her in the dark. With a torch in one hand we followed her down the stairs and through the house. I saw the dining room window was missing I could see the search lights and the glow of fires. My tummy felt sick and my mouth very dry.
We left the house to go down the Anderson shelter in our back garden and I felt the chill night air making my teeth chatter more than the frightening things going on.
We ran to the shelter which was half underground, I opened the little door Dad had put on it and we slipped down the little wooden steps into the cold damp shelter and pulled the door shut. Everything was muffled by the padded door and 2ft. of earth covering the iron curves of the shelter roof.
Mum told us to sit still on a little wooden bunk and she lit Kelly Lanterns about 6" high, filled with paraffin, and they would not tip over as they had a weight in the base. Then mum lit a paraffin heater and soon we were warming up as the place became snug and smelly with paraffin burning.
The shelter was like Alladins cave furnished with homemade bunks and a cot for my baby brother, a cupboard with supplies and water and a bucket for a toilet. We were soon tucked up in bed all together and rocked by the bumps of explosions and lulled by the rumble of anti-aircraft fire we soon fell into a fitful sleep, woken by extra loud bangs through the night.
When daylight came the all clear siren went and we hurried back indoors to our own beds and caught up on some sleep, until mum got us up for breakfast. We sat at the table with no glass in the window so it was a bit windy, like a picnic.

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