大象传媒

I was living in Birmingham with my parents. My father was working with the Rescue Squad of the ARP, and he was involved in the Coventry bombing rescue work, and it did affect him. He used to wake up in the night really in a sweat about it.

He used to wear pyjamas with strings in the belt, and on one occasion he was found to be hanging over the side of the bed, pulling the strings out of his pyjamas and letting them down, over the side of the bed, saying, 'hang onto this and I'll pull you out'.

I can also remember when I was out with my mother, and she went into a shop to buy some corsets, and the lady assistant was crying, and my mother was trying to comfort her, she said she had had a terrible shock.

My mother sent me out of the shop, but later I heard about it, when she was telling a neighbour friend. Apparently there'd been a bomb which had exploded just behind the shop, and the assistant, who ran out of the shop, had witnessed the head of someone being blown into a tree. I was only nine and I didn't appreciate the full horror of this story at the time, but I keep remembering how I saw my mother so upset.

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