大象传媒

I remember the night of November 3rd 1943 very well, as it was the night of a blitz on Ipswich. I was on a night out with some of the other girls who worked with me at Reavells in Ranelagh Road, and we went to the Ritz cinema in the Butter Market to see Judy Garland and James Mason in 'Presenting Lily Mars'. We were enjoying the film when we heard the air raid warning, but we shrugged it off as usual, waiting to hear if the 'Cuckoo Warning' was going to sound telling us the enemy aircraft were overhead and we should all go down into the nearest shelter. After a few minutes it sounded and as we got up to leave there were some heavy sounding thuds and bangs, and some real earthquake type movements, we were too late.

The film was switched off and the manager came onto the stage to tell us it would be safer to stay put, as the streets outside were strewn with glass from shop windows and the frames were jutting out over the pavements. Then some male members of staff wheeled a grand piano onto the middle of the stage and we had community singing, and when the lights all went out the manager once again put us at ease by placing a single candle on the piano. We all clapped and he took a bow and encouraged the singing until the 鈥淎ll Clear鈥� sounded, about an hour later.

When we emerged into the blacked out streets it was not as bad as we thought, and we crunched our way over the broken glass that was on the road in some places. We said our goodbyes to those of us going into a different part of town and my two chums and 1 walked home to Bramford Lane, where we were near neighbours. When I went to enter my front gate there was an Air Raid Warden on duty, and he "You can't go in there miss, there was a thousand pound bomb dropped at the back and we don't know how far the crater stretches". I asked about my parents but no one seemed to have any idea where they were, I was frantic and was pleading with the warden to let me pass when I heard my fathers voice from next door. He was helping our neighbour Mrs Rose as her husband was abroad in the forces.

I said rather crossly, "What about Mum and my baby sister Shirley? Shouldn't you be with them?" and he said they were across the road with my grandmother, and were quite safe. As it was a cold night, instead of going into the air raid shelter in the garden, they had huddled under the dining room table, which was heavy oak. Dad was on fire watch duty at work but came home as soon as the All Clear sounded and took them across to Gran's, as there were no windows left in our house and it was so cold. We closed the house as best we could and joined them.

Next morning we left Shirley with Gran and ventured home again, the sight that met our eyes made us thank God that no one was hurt in that vicinity. The back walls of our house and the one ajoining it, 134 and 136 had been badly damaged and the two houses that were behind them, up the drive,( now Lambeth Way?) 134A and 136A had their front walls missing. The crater in our garden was very wide and deep, and the apple tree gone, branches to be seen later sticking out of roof tops streets away, including the very top of Richmond Road. The heavy garden lawn roller was now embedded in another roof in All Saints road, there was debris everywhere. We were so glad that it was a cold night and Mum had opted for the table for shelter, as I don't think they would have survived the blast in the garden although the shelter was still there under the dirt. It took twenty lorry loads of brick rubble etc. to fill in the crater, my houseproud mum said most of the dirt was in her hall and up the stairs.

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