大象传媒

The account below is from an interview with my grandmother, Angie Hibbs, recorded in 1992. Angie's husband, Frank, was an Air Raid Warden; their son, Alan, was born in 1942.

"As we were sitting having breakfast on a Sunday morning, a bomb took a plate of glass out of the window. Just took it out, like that. We were sitting there then. But actually we didn鈥檛 have any damage, not to the house.

Alan was tiny then, he had to sleep in the Morrison shelter in the spare bedroom, and so I thought I鈥檇 sleep with him. I slept under the shelter one night and oohh! I was nearly suffocated! I couldn鈥檛 sleep there any more! So we put him there and then Frank and I moved into the same bedroom.

There was only a single bed, but the thing was, if we鈥檇 been bombed, we might have been separated and couldn鈥檛 get to his room, so we thought we鈥檇 better be in there all together. So that鈥檚 what we did. That was a nightmare! Well, Alan wouldn鈥檛 keep himself covered up!

The doodlebugs used to come over the wood and several times I wondered whether I鈥檇 got to rush out into the wood with Alan; which would be safest, would it be safer indoors or outside?

We decided we鈥檇 all sleep in the same room. It was a tight fit in a single bed!

I must say it was a jolly good thing we didn鈥檛 know what we鈥檇 got to put up with in those days."

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.