大象传媒

May 12th 1941 is a day etched forever in my memory, that is when Lumley Square was bombed, killing 12 of our neighbours and injuring 25 others. Just a few hours before I had been playing with my pal 鈥淩onnie Chitty鈥� and I was never to see him again as he and his family perished in the raid.
My dad, who was in the navy had just come home on a weeks leave from his base in Belfast, which had been very heavily bombed and my granddad 鈥淐harlie Robinson鈥� asked him if he would be getting out of bed if the air raid siren sounded, his reply was 鈥� 鈥渙nly if a bomb drops in our backyard鈥� which is exactly what happened 鈥� talk about tempting fate!! Our house stood on the corner of the square, which we shared with my grandparents 鈥淓mily + Charlie Robinson鈥� and their children 鈥淐harlie and Greta鈥� 鈥� my mom was their eldest.
About 9pm that night my granddad 鈥淐harlie鈥� who was on duty as an air raid warden called in to say it looked like being a quite night as there was no activity reported and went back to his post at the air raid shelter, which was built under the square garden just a few yards from the house, when the bomb fell and he was blown down the steps and all the buttons on his overcoat were ripped off. When we came to his senses and staggered back up the steps and saw the devastation, he was sure we all must have been killed. 2 houses adjoining ours were complete wrecks and all our windows had been blown out. When he managed to get in the house he found us staggering about covered in soot and dust but otherwise unhurt. His son, Charlie was the luckiest one; he was a 17yr old apprentice fitter at the local shipyard and was also employed as a runner, taking messages between air raid stations at night and was feeling very tired, so he asked his dad if he could have the night off, but his dad an ex 鈥渟ergeant major鈥� from WWI said no he had to go and do his duty. If he had let him take the night off, he would have been killed in his bed because a concrete window lintel was later found right across his pillow and there were huge cracks in the walls, going right down to the cellar. It鈥檚 a miracle how we all survived, even the canary survived 鈥� its cage had been blown across the room and was stuck halfway up the way just as if it had been super glued there. Instead of being bright yellow, the bird was as black as a crow.
We lost all our food as everything was peppered with glass. My dad had been saving his meal rations and brought home a big bag of lamb so we could all have a feast but that was ruined too.
My mom said I didn鈥檛 speak for a week and when I did all I could say was 鈥淗itler bombed our house鈥�. There was no street counselling in those days you just had to get on with it!
We had to move out of the house as it wasn鈥檛 safe; my mum, dad and granddad had to trudge the streets looking for somewhere to move into 鈥� eventually we had to take a house that had been empty for years and was down for demolition 鈥� it had no windows, doors or fireplaces.
Fortunately my granddad was a master builder by trade and was soon able to put things right. We saw out the rest of the war there, and then got a new council house.
There is much more I could tell you about the war, all of my dad鈥檚 service exploits are as clear in my mind as when he told me about them but it would take much more than 500 words to get them down in words.

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