大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Margaret Walker of the 鈥楢ction Desk 鈥� Sheffield鈥� Team on behalf of Evelyn Brammer and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and condition

Childhood Memory of the Blitz Night with my aunt.

I was aged 14 in about 1940/41, and every Thursday, I had to go and stay with my aunt, Mrs Bell, at Graves Park, in Sheffield, because my uncle was in the Home Guard and was out on duty every Thursday, and my aunt didn鈥檛 like sleeping on her own.
One particular night, I arrived at my aunt鈥檚 as usual, and after tea, we were just doing the washing up, when we heard the sirens going and we could also hear the bombs dropping. My aunt said, 鈥淨uick, lets get under the dining room table鈥�. There was a piece of land very close to the side of the house, and at that moment, a bomb landed right there, right next to us. The whole house shook, the noise was terrific, all the windows were blown out and all the pots were shattered, everything was broken. The first thing I said was, 鈥淥h auntie, we needn鈥檛 have done all that washing up!鈥� My aunt couldn鈥檛 believe that was the first thing I had thought about, and for many, many years, this became a standing joke in the family. Just after that happened though, the air raid warden came rushing to the house, and took us immediately to the air-raid shelter on Derbyshire Lane. We were both shell shocked and disorientated from the experience, as well as covered in dirt and dust. We stayed there all night, the shelter was packed and it was awful. We hadn鈥檛 taken anything in with us, but we didn鈥檛 care, we were just glad to be alive.
The next day, we came out of the air raid shelter very early in the morning. My uncle came and collected us and wanted to take us back home, or what was left of it. I didn鈥檛 want to go back though, I just wanted to go home. I was worried about my mum and dad and was wondering if they had survived the night. My aunt and uncle let me go, and as there was no transport, I set off walking home, all the way from Derbyshire Lane to Darnall. For some reason, I didn鈥檛 go the way I should have, which would have been to walk towards Norton, and then Gleadless and across the top towards Darnall. I walked down Derbyshire Lane and headed towards town. I don鈥檛 know why I did this, maybe it was shock. Anyway, I walked through High Street, and it was awful. I just didn鈥檛 recognise it as High Street anymore. There were empty spaces where shops used to be, like C & A and the Marples. This was the same all the way back to Darnall, but thankfully, when I eventually reached home, there were my mum and dad, who were both O.K. and also very relieved to see me as well.

Pr-BR

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