大象传媒

The 16 year old baby

This story was contributed to the People's War site by a volunteer from Oxford on behalf of Mrs Biggs and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Biggs fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

At the time I was about 16 and living in Greenwich with my parents and my grandmother. Coming home from work we usually had a wash, a meal and then three of us went to the shelter in the garden for the night. My father always insisted on staying in his own bed in the house. That evening though the bombing was so bad that we successfully pleaded with him to go to the shelter. Since there was not enough room for all of us, especially as my aunt was visiting, my parents went to the shelter in the garden of our next door neighbours who were away and who had offered us the use of their shelter if we needed it.
Other times one could hear the engine of a doodlebug cut out and then noiselessly glide away but that night after the engine cut out it did not glide away but fell on our house. In an instant half the house was gone and half the next door house also and the debris fell onto our shelter. Luckily my father had previously reinforced our shelter with concrete and it held up but the door was blocked. There was dust everywhere and the bomb must have disturbed a nest of ants because they were all over the place. It was truly awful.
When my mother heard the explosion she ran out of her shelter yelling: "my baby, my baby" and cried out to the firemen who were around by then: "come and get my baby out!" The firemen partially cleared the entrance and shouted to us: "give us out the baby first". They were surprised to find a 16 year old baby. In the middle of our despair we all laughed.
We had nothing left and the family had to split up. My parents went to live with my uncle and my grandmother and I went to live in the country in a caravan he owned. Ever since then I cannot abide ants.

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