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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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Contributed by听
National Trust WW2 Rural Learning Events
People in story:听
Phyllis Davis
Location of story:听
Coventry
Article ID:听
A4138328
Contributed on:听
01 June 2005

I was 18 when war broke out
I worked in the GEC making munitions. Most nights we had to get up and go down the garden to the Anderson shelter. In the morning we had to walk to work ,about a mile and a half, there were no buses and we were usually tired from little or no sleep.
We worked 7:30 to 6:00 6 and half days a week.
We got clapped every morning at work if we made it in and were welcomed with a hot cup of tea. I remember that on many morning after the bombing the contents of the shops were strewn all over the streets where the windows had been blown out. The police would be watching to make sure nothing was pilfered.
We were very lucky up until Nov 1940 when the blitz started in earnest. Land mines and bombs were dropped. We woke up the next morning and couldn鈥檛 recognise where we were. There was still a lot of haze and smoke around and the air was terrible. Our house was windowless, roofless, and the doors were blown out.
My mother went in to town to try to find out about buses to my grand parents in Minsterly in Shropshire. I was left to salvage what clothes I could from the house.
Mum returned to tell us there were no buses getting in to town so we would have to walk the 5 miles out to where they were. She had taken a long time as she had stopped to see the King George V and Queen Mary who had come to visit the town. So we walked with our bundles under our arms we had no suitcases or bags just loose bundles. It was not easy because of the potholes and rubble everywhere. After what seemed ages we saw the buses. People did not know where they were going they just wanted to escape from Coventry. When we finally got to Shrewsbury we were overjoyed to find everything normal. Then we were able to get to Minsterley and were very happy to get there. My grand parents treated us like VIPs they were glad to see we were OK. We got our first good undisturbed nights sleep for long time.
We felt indebted to them so we went to the village store to get some treats and we apologised that we had no ration books, (they had been destroyed) and they let us have what we wanted. They thought we were heros. My father had to go back as he was on war work and we joined him later in 6 weeks when the house had been repaired to a habitable standard. We lived happily ever after.

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