大象传媒

The air raids became much more frequent in Ipswich in 1940. I remember the first one very well. On the afternoon of June 8th 1940 some German planes flew over Ipswich while I was in Holywells Park having a picnic with my neighbour, my daughter Sheila who was in the pram and my son John.

John had just fallen into the paddling pool and emerged covered in green slime. We stripped off his wet clothes, and while my neighbour rinsed them out in the water, I wrapped him in his school raincoat. Suddenly John shouted out pointing up into the sky, 鈥淚 can see a plane with a Swastika on it!鈥�. I said, 鈥淒on鈥檛 be silly. Our country wouldn鈥檛 let them get this close to us.鈥� But just at that moment one of the air wardens came rushing over and told us to get into the air raid shelter as quickly as possible. We couldn鈥檛 shift the pram which was stuck in the mud so we left it behind with John鈥檚 clothes and ran into the air raid shelter. The shelter was only just painted and when we reached it people were coming out of it as quickly as they were going in. They were being overcome by the creosote fumes. So we huddled together outside instead. And once the air raid was over, the sirens finally went off for the first time!

The German planes were after the Docks you see. On this occasion they only dropped a bundle of small bombs, the size of cucumbers. I think they were called pencil bombs, but they did a lot of damage. When we went back to the paddling pool we found the pram stuck in the ground and John鈥檚 clothes buried in the bomb crater. John never did get over that. That鈥檚 when his asthma started.

Eight weeks later my husband Ernie received a letter from the Government ordering him to do Government service. He was too old to fight in the war. He had two choices. Either to go to Coventry to work in a munitions factory or go to Worcester to work in an aeroplane factory. If he chose Worcester his family could go with him, so he chose Worcester.

We were told that when we arrived in Worcester we would be put up in a hotel until they found us somewhere else to go. However, when we arrived at night-time there was nowhere for us to go so the duty policeman took us back to his house. Unfortunately the policeman鈥檚 wife was none too pleased to have us because she had a boyfriend who used to visit when her husband was on night duty. As a consequence she wasn鈥檛 very nice to us and she was particularly cruel to John.

John鈥檚 asthma was growing increasingly worse as the war went on. Mostly because he was an nervous child and missed home. We took him to see the local doctor in Worcester and he suggested that he would be better if he had his tonsils out. That it would improve his breathing.

By this time we had moved in with Mr and Mrs Davies who had a nice big house and who were very kind to us. We had a big bedroom for the four of us and our own dining room plus the use of the kitchen and the bathroom. It cost 23 shillings a week which was a lot of money then. We lived there for five and a half years. For the war.

So John went into hospital and had his tonsils out and then he came home again. But while he was in hospital he caught the whooping cough germ from another boy in the next bed which eventually developed into pneumonia. The doctor came to visit him again but misdiagnosed his condition and gave him the wrong medicine. This medicine made him much worse. They didn鈥檛 have penicillin then - only for the forces. Anyway John became critically ill. The pneumonia turned into septicaemia and he was rushed back into hospital. He was only there for one day.

There was an air raid the night that John died. It was the only raid they ever had in Worcester. In fact, it wasn鈥檛 even a raid, just planes flying overhead and going on to Birmingham and Coventry. Ever since Holywells Park, John had been terrified of the raids. So when he heard the planes coming overhead during his crisis he was beside himself with fear. Ernie and I knew he鈥檇 be terrified so we left Sheila with the Davies鈥檚 in the cellar and ran to the hospital. But when we got there the gates were locked. So Ernie lifted me over the hospital walls, then climbed over himself. We ran hand in hand into the hospital and found John under his bed delirious.

You see, the nurse hearing the sirens had taken him out of his bed and put him on the floor. This was a stupid thing to do because he shouldn鈥檛 have been moved. It was the moving him that killed him. Ernie quickly lifted him back onto the bed and I lay down beside him. John didn鈥檛 know where he was or what he was saying. While he lay dying he was crying out for Mrs Davies. That hurt me for years and years. For a very long time. Because we had only just met Mrs Davies. Why wasn鈥檛 he calling out for me?

He died that night. My sister Frances who was working in Ipswich Docks immediately rushed down to Worcester to be with us. She was instantly demoted when she returned to Ipswich - for leaving her post. But we really needed her. We didn鈥檛 have any family there and I was in a dreadful state.

We had to bring John back to Ipswich ourselves to bury him. It was a horrible journey - the worst in my life - especially crossing London. Ernie had to carry John in his tiny coffin all the way back to Ipswich. And he was so scared that he would drop him. The Underground was full of homeless people. They had nothing left in the world and had built temporary homes on the station platforms with bedding, cooking utensils and stoves. Whatever they had been able to salvage. There were people everywhere. You had to be careful not to tread on them or to tip over their chamber pots. It was like a living hell. Like a nightmare. You can鈥檛 imagine what it was like to step out onto that platform.

Ernie has a fortnight off to bury John and then we had to go back to Worcester. I didn鈥檛 want to leave my family and Sheila had caught the whooping cough in ipswich. But we still had to travel. And then live on the rations - 2 ounces of butter, 2 ounces of cheese. And it had to do for us all.

I was on a very nervous condition for a year after John died but Ernie pulled me through it and Mr and Mrs davies were very kind. Both our mothers wrote to us every week. Then when I was better and could cope again, it was Ernie鈥檚 turn. He broke down and was never the same again. He used to finish work in the factory and not come home. I had to leave Sheila with Mrs Davies and go out looking for him. I used to find him biking around Worcester in the dark. Round and round in circles. He didn鈥檛 know where he was going or what he was doing. I just used to take him by the arm and lead him back to Mr and Mrs Davies鈥檚 house.

We lived with Mr and Mrs Davies for five and a half years and in that time they became very fond of Sheila. They were like grandparents to her and she didn鈥檛 want to leave.

That was my war. I lost my only dear son and in many ways I lost my husband too.

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