大象传媒

鈥淭his story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Anita Howard from the Essex Action Desk on behalf of Dorothy Draper and has been added to then site with her permission. Dorothy Draper fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.鈥�

I lived in a farm near the village of Clifton in the Calder valley of Yorkshire. At night we heard planes on their way to Manchester and Liverpool to bomb the Manchester Ship Canal. I was terrified when I went to visit my sister in Manchester. When there was an air raid we could hear the bombs crunching down.
It was the same when I visited London to meet my husband who was with E.N.S.A. entertaining the troops.

Before the war Charles was an opera singer with Sadler鈥檚 Wells but couldn鈥檛 get work because Wagnerian music had lost popularity with the general public. Luckily, when he was younger and his voice was breaking he had trained as an engineer in the Aeronautical Inspector Department in Harrogate so he worked for the A.I.D.
E.N.S.A. contacted him to work for them, at first in England and then in Europe. He was in charge of different E.N.S.A. 鈥減arties鈥� but I never knew where he worked as he had to 鈥淜eep mum.鈥�

On 鈥淒 Day 3鈥� he crossed the channel with an E.N.S.A. party and another party which included George Formby. He knew George Formby because they both came from Warrington.
He followed the 鈥淎rmoured Guard Division !鈥� into Germany and was present when one of the concentration camps was liberated. I can鈥檛 remember which one, but he told me the inmates were skeletal and it was a terrible sight.
When he was in Italy he also saw the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress hanging in the street.

I rarely saw my husband but he did see my daughter Carol when she was born in January 1940 in London but then we had to move back to Yorkshire for safety. My daughter then didn鈥檛 see him until she was six years old and she said, 鈥淲ho鈥檚 that man?鈥�

During the war I taught in the Clifton village school where I had been as a child. I took baby Carol and she slept in a little cot in the school hall whilst I worked.

After the war was over we went back to London and to join Charles and he returned to work at Sadler鈥檚 Wells at the Coliseum which became the home of the British National Opera. I taught as a supply teacher in London at Highbury Vale next to Arsenal Football ground.

Dorothy Draper aged 92. 26.7.1905

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