大象传媒

I was 15 when war was declared, the eldest child of a family which consisted of my mother,father, 3 brothers, aged 1 month,9 years and 13 years respectively and my sister who was 6 years. Early on in the war my two elder brothers were evacuated to Stockton on Forrest outside York and my sister went to Boston in Lincolnshire.
Soon after commencing work I started saving up my pocket money to buy some nice underwear. I had just bought a pair of lime green cami- knickers when on May 8th 1941 we had a fall of soot, with windows broken due to bombs in the area, and my new knickers were covered in soot. These I washed out (grudgingly) and hung them on the line in the kitchen.
On May 9th 1941 the buzzers went early so I went under the stairs with my little brother. It was a terrible night bombwise. An air-raid warden knocked on the front door to tell us to evacuate as oil bombs had been dropped on our block of houses. He guided us to the air-raid shelter opposite which was in the sugar mill. I only had slippers and night dress on so I put a coat on top. Mother took a small attache case with her (insurance papers etc.). All the neighbours went into the shelter which was L shaped. Someone found an emergency box of spirits and as the bombs were dropping the younger section were getting merrier.
My younger brother was sitting on Mum's knee and she was sitting near the entrance when a small bomb blew the door open. My brother had a dummy on a piece of string round his neck, the dummy was blown out of his mouth and afterwards we saw he had a bright red line on his face which the string had caused. The elderly people were quite sober but cannot say the same for some of the young ones.
The sugar mill had now caught fire and we had to escape through the roof. Two men and my father were helping everyone out and we had to jump about a yard onto another shelter.
Being young I was fit but where the elderly got the energy and will power from I don't know. Fear I suppose.
We had to move to two more shelters before the all clear blew. When we got to the final shelter it was rather quiet so I decided to look at our house ( we were two streets away), I couldn't understand where all the wire had come from, then realised all the telephone wires were down. As I only had slippers on I had to be careful where I put my feet. I reached the house but the front door had been blown off, its hinges which I walked over. We had linoleum on the stairs and there were little globules of fire on the steps. I opened the kitchen door but closed it quickly as it was well alight. All I could think of was my cami-knickers and what had happened to them. I did ask an air-raid warden to come in the house with me but he refused and told me not to go in either. I looked in the front room but that was nearly as bad as the kitchen. I grabbed my coat off the peg in the hall and also took Dad's mail bag! He was a postman. I went back to Mum and Dad and told them what the house was like and all Mum could say was, didn't I get the new boots she had just bought my brother out of the sideboard

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