大象传媒

We never used to take any notice of how frightening the situation was. We had bombs that used to come down and set fire to things. They set fire to our neighbours鈥� house once- one fell through the roof and two others were alight. We were lucky 鈥� we missed that. Then we had the doodlebugs. We wondered what they were at first, we thought they were planes! But as it went down it looked like a plane, but it was just a small couple of wings and then the fire out the back. When the fire went out the plane came down and bombed everything. Again we were lucky because it swerved away from the school and landed just on the opposite side. Well, we were lucky but people just near there weren鈥檛.

One lady鈥檚 husband died through his wounds, and she came and lived next door but one to my Mum. She was our neighbour from then on so that was nice.

We had the rockets then and they were bad 鈥� the rockets. One morning I was making a cup of tea: I鈥檇 just got in from the kitchen to the sitting room, I had a pot of tea in my hand and I found my Mum under the table with Margaret (my little girl). This rocket 鈥� you could hear it 鈥渟wish鈥� and it landed on the house of the lady who used to come and do our hair. She was killed, and her Mother, and others were very badly wounded. We didn鈥檛 get many of those rockets, they started gradually falling off, and we just got the planes coming and the bombs.

We didn鈥檛 use to take much notice of what was going on, we used to walk up to the High Street and ignore them. It was an every day occurrence really.

The house we lived in got caught once, we had no top floor 鈥� the bedrooms were all gone, and that鈥檚 why we were living downstairs. I had to go running around the roads and streets looking for workmen to put a tarpaulin over us because of the rain. That鈥檚 what they did they helped people put tarpaulin over their roofs. When I found them they came and did ours. Mum had to go up and claim for some bedding and beds and what have you, but we were pretty lucky on the whole. We managed alright.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Becky Barugh of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Doris Saunders and has been added to the site with her permission. Mrs Saunders fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

See more of Doris's stories:

• We weren鈥檛 prepared for war at all
• They鈥檇 all just started, like me
• That鈥檚 how we crossed paths
• All you could see was his eyes
• You鈥檇 see a queue and just jump on the end
• Climbing trees and fences
• We took notice that time!
• We had some fun with 鈥榚m
• He鈥檇 gone all the way round
• It was lucky I鈥檇 already got married

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