大象传媒

My father was in the ARP and put his hand up to his helmet as a gust of wind seemed about to lift it off. At that moment a small piece of schrapnel about 2-3 inches long and burning hot fell towards him, cutting and burning his wrist in a long diagonal wound. He came to us in the air raid shelter to say he was all right but would go to the first-aid post to have his cut wrapped up, and in the dim light of the shelter we saw long red ropes of congealing blood streaking his fawn mac. A very vivid picture. As an air raid warden for several hours a week in addition to his daytime job, he would be walking round the streets looking for incendiary bombs and reporting damage he had seen. One night there was an incendiary raid when the planes dropped hundreds of bombs all in one cluster: They were about as big as a pringles carton in grey meal, with wings at the bottom to help guide them to earth. One bounced down the steps of our shelter and a very quick-witted person picked it up and flung it back up the steps away from us. I know whether it was a dud or whether it subsequently went off. They caused a lot of trouble, setting off fires on peoples roofs and sometimes being very difficult to get to, to put the fire out. One morning we came up out of the shelter and were puzzled - we thought we were looking at a sunset but it was in the wrong part of the sky. We were told that Coventry had been bombed - a medieval city built mostly of wood so it burned for days.

Father was too old to serve in the forces in WW1 but he was in France with the British expeditionary force in WW2.

Another fragment of memory - meat was usually in short supply, sometimes more so than others. My mother discovered a little shop by an abatoir in Sherlock Street or Bradford Street in inner-city Birmingham where horse-meat was sold on one or two days most weeks - it was all very haphazard. She would queue for an hour or two in the hope of getting some meat, which tasted like beef. When she get any meat she made a vegetable stew and baked some crusts of bread - bread was rationed till 1952 so that too was precious - baked them till they were dark brown, and stirred them into the stew "i will put plenty of salt and pepper in it and everybody will think its meat" she laughed. They were grateful for a tasty stew.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.