大象传媒

Hi, my name is Christina Ray Edminson. When the war started I was 10 years old.

Before the war started, people came round and built a corrugated iron shelter in a hole in our garden. Soil was then put over the top to give extra protection against falling bombs. The reason why they were built was so that you would go down there when the Germans came and dropped their bombs. When it rained, most people鈥檚 shelters flooded, as rain flows to the lowest point (in the hole where the shelters were), but in our shelter my dad built a drain so it didn鈥檛 flood.

Corrugated iron and soil may not seem like much protection against a bomb, but most of the bombs that were dropped over residential areas were incendiary bombs. They were designed to set fire to any building they hit; rather than blow them up. The reason they were so effective was that they could break through the roof and then start fires inside buildings as most things were made of wood in those days.

To let people know the German planes were near and you needed to go into the shelter, a huge and noisy siren went off. The first time it went off was when I鈥檇 gone down to get a loaf of bread from the corner shop and I was 100 yards away from home and the siren went off! I was terrified, I froze to the spot, I tried to tell my feet to move but they wouldn鈥檛. When I didn鈥檛 return my dad got worried and came out to look for me, he took my hand and said 鈥淐ome on, we need to get in the shelter鈥� so we ran home as fast as we could and got into the air raid shelter.

At night, we had what we called 鈥榖lackouts鈥�. What happened was that at night everyone would cover up his or her windows in the house with this thick black paper that you rolled up during the day. As well as that, all the streetlights were put out (they were gas then) so it was pitch black outside if you didn鈥檛 have a torch. That鈥檚 why many people ended up with a bump on their head!

In those days, beer used to be quite cheap. One day my dad had been at work in the shipyards and afterwards he had gone for a drink with his work pals. Now this particular day for some reason he had drank more than usual. My dad never made it to his bed that night but the siren went off. My dad was lying on the kitchen floor and my mam tried waking him up to get in the shelter but he wouldn鈥檛 wake. My mam was tiny compared to my dad so any attempt to drag him in the shelter failed. Eventually, we pulled the table over him and ran into shelter. What difference the table would make we didn鈥檛 know but luckily our house didn鈥檛 get hit.

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