大象传媒

It was a lovely day the day the war started. I was frightened to stay in the house and listen to the news so I went out. I remember seeing barrage balloons in the sky. When I came back my parents were putting blackout up at the windows.
We had a shelter which we went into, just when the sirens sounded to begin with, but when the raids got bad we spent every night down there. It slept six at a time, four single bunks one double. There were, six of our family, the lady next, door our dog and her dogs as well as a bird in there. I just can't remember what kind of lighting we had.
That was 1940 when Birmingham had it very bad. We lived on the borders of Birmingham very near to Sutton Park they said the German Pilots would see where they were by the moon shining on the pools in the Park, they would turn around and fly over Birmingham to drop their bombs.
That year in November my parents decided it would be safer if we were evacuated, and wouldn't have to spend every night down the shelter. We had no idea where we were going. The afternoon before we were leaving in the morning the Headmistress told us to tell our parents not to come if they were going to get upset.The next morning we went down to get the buses, my two sisters and myself with the girls and my brother with the boys, I was then twelve, my brother eleven one sister nine and the youngest just six. The last words my mother said to me were don't let them part you, what a responsibility. We were taken to a station and caught a train, I remember that but not much else until we arrived at a school in Alfreton, Derby.
People were waiting at the school to take us to their homes, still remembering what my Mother had said I just wouldn't be parted from my sisters, no one wanted three, not knowing what to do with us, they knew a lady who said she would have a boy. They fetch her she said she would have us for the night, well they kept us, they were a very kind couple. My brother and sisters only stayed a few months, I'd stayed until the next July when I left school.
During the time I was there I saw my Mother once a month, they came down in a coach and I only saw my Father once as he was in the Army.

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