大象传媒

I was born in a small Warwickshire village called Ashorne, south of Leamington Spa in 1932 ,my father worked in Coventry on the railway as a clerk and used to travel every day by train , but in 1936 we moved to Earlesdon, and later in 1938 to Green Lane a suburb of Coventry. I attended Green Lane infants school a newly built school when I was 5 years of age and croossing the unopened coventyr by pass to reach the school . before the war started I remember going to the War Memorial Park with my parents to the Civil Defence demonstration which involved showing the public what to due in case of air raids etc. Very exiting with sirens sounding and incendary bombs being let off. The war was declared when we were at my grandparents house in Ashorne and i remember my grandmother geing very upset about it as she had had a son wounded in the Warwickshire regiement in France in the first war. My father joined the Home guard [ the was just old enough the be conscripted into the Navy in the Ist World War ] and we were issued with Anderson shelters for use in the back garden.At school we used large underground shelters in the common backing onto the kenilworth road adjacent to the school . We sat on wooden benches and waited for the all clear to sound. After the raids started school became sparadic , and since the school had been built with large windows they were blocked with sand bags. My mother was sent to work in The Green Lane garage making munitions . When the 1940 heavy raids were taking place my father was on duty fire watching in Warwick Road when the station was bombed and saw a policeman with his head blown off when a bomb fell next to the railway bridge. The Home Guard headquaters was in the block of flats next door to the Railway Pub[ now the rocket ] . After the intensive 1940 raids when the city center was destroyed my paters decided that we shouid leave and we wakked to kenilworth where my uncle lived at Station Farm, and I remember the crowds of refugees walking out of town to safety. Later we went to Crew to my other grandparents house for a few days. After this we moved to Ashorne where I attended the Village school. A few months later we moved back home , and although many houses at the top of Beanfield Avenue had been destroyed ours had only a few tiles and windows blown out. One day we heard a noise and looked out to see a German Bomber flying very low overhead, it then dropped bombs on the standard factory but was shot down before getting home.
To be continued

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