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A Very Close Call

I have two vivid memories of things that happened to my family during the Plymouth blitz, of which this is the clearest.

It occurred at a house on the steep hillside to the South of St. Levan Road. It may well have been somewhere between the current Pasley Street East & St. George’s Terrace, to the West of Ford Hill. The owner of the house was a very old lady who, I seem to recall, was almost blind. To the rear of the house was a stone courtyard, with steps down to the rear lane. The steps were cut into the side of the hill, so we had to turn right to go down the steps. We had been told we were to use the Anderson shelter in the back garden of the property immediately across the lane at the back of the house at which we were lodging.

On this dreadful night, the air raid sirens had been emitting their mournful wail for a few minutes; the bombing had already started. My mother, carrying my baby brother Michael and our few belongings, had been desperately trying to get the old lady to leave her room & go to the air raid shelter with us, but she had refused. I was carrying a shrouded candle to light our way across the courtyard, down the steps, across the lane & into the Andersen shelter.

All around us we could hear the dreaded ’crump’ as a bomb landed and, all too often, somebody’s home disappeared. We knew to listen to the whistling noise as the bombs were dropping; if the whistling noise stopped before the detonation was heard, THAT BOMB was going to be VERY CLOSE!

We were just over halfway down the steps when it happened; a bomb was heading our way; the whistling, which had been particularly loud, had stopped!

Mum crouched down on the steps, her head beneath the level of the courtyard. Michael was in the crook of her left arm, & I was standing alongside Mum, shielding both Michael & our feeble candle light. True to prediction, the bomb landed close to us alright; the house we had just left seemed to rise up in the air a little, then gently subside into a great cloud of dust.

Despite the passage of years, I can still close my eyes & see that shaking candle & our little group crouched against the wall.

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