大象传媒

I was born in Sheffield in March 1937 so I was about 3 and three quarters at the time of the Sheffield Blitz in December 1940. We lived in a terraced house quite near to the city centre and when there was an air raid we went down to the cellar under the house.

My father was lame so he was not in the Forces but was a fire watcher and on the night of the Blitz we were in the cellar when bombs were dropping very close. Eventually, an air raid warden came to tell us it was too dangerous to stay and we had to move to a shelter at the back of the houses. I remember being carried out of the smoke-filled house by my mother with debris falling all around us.

In the shelter were families from neighbouring houses and, when one of the buildings caught fire, we heard the screaming of a dog that was still inside.

Then the warden came to say we had to move again and we were all taken to the tram sheds at the top of the street. There we were given drinks and mugs of soup. Soon, the sheds became too dangerous and we were moved to a school further out from the city centre where we slept on the floor.

The next day, I think, friends of my parents came looking for us and took us to live with them on the outskirts of the city where we stayed for a couple of months before they found us a house some relatives of theirs had lived in.

I started school in 1942 and we always had air raid practices, just as schools have fire drills now. The shelter was a brick building at the bottom of the playground and we had to line up in single file and, holding on to the coat of the child in front,go into the shelter and sit on the wooden benches around the walls and then put on our gas masks. It was pitch black in there and we never had any lights. At home we had an Anderson shelter where we retreated to whenever the sirens went.

During wartime everything was scarce and my mother used to knit jumpers for my father and after a while unpick them to make something for herself. They always ended being unpicked again to knit up for me. I remember a coat of my mother's becoming my cut- down dressing gown.

An uncle was in the Royal Navy and once when he came home on leave he brought me a banana from somewhere or other. I took it to school and the teacher made a lesson around it as none of the class could remember seeing one before.

After all these years I still have my gas mask and whenever I hear the sound of the air raid sirens in a film or on T.V, I get that old creepy feeling across my neck and am taken back to that unforgettable memory.

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