大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People War site by Angela Triggs CSV 大象传媒 Coventry & Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of Betty Thorpe nad has been added to the site with her permission. Tha author fully undertstands the site's terms and conditions.

I was just 4 when the war began, so dont remembre much about the beginning. When I was 5 my mother and father decided to send me to stay with relatives in Bristol (I think they sent me because a bomb had landed near my school, and because Coventry was taking quite a lots of hits, whereas Bristol didn't appear to be so much of a target).

I had 10 wonderful weeks there with very happy memories. Their neighbour was toopoorly to go into the shelter if there was a raid, so we had had 'siren parties' in his bedroom. This is the only time in my life that |I have drunk coffee.

There was a family who lived in the dsame street as my parents in COventry and our mothers used to walk me and the son (MIchael) to school together.

There house was declared unfit after a bomb droppped near their home so they moved to Nottingham and were killed whilst they slept in their beds by a bomb there. Tragically their home in Coventry was still standing at the end of the war.

Whilst I was staying in Bristol, apparently my father used to bring back people from Work who had been bombed in their homes and my mother had to cook on the open fire and fetch water from the next street, as the gas and water pipes had been damaged.

I can remember feeling irritated when queueing for rations because a pregant woman was allowed to go to the front of the queue. By the time we got there, there was nothing left for us !

I was in Weston-super-Mare on VJ day and the excitement was trememndous.

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