大象传媒

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My mother was in the blitz during the war, she would have been about fifteen years old. Her elder sister (two or three years older) was actually observing enemy aircraft, her elder brother who must have been about eighteen, was in the Merchant Navy, and her younger sister, Gladys, who would have been about nine, was evacuated in 1940 to Devon.

My mother had to look after my grandmother, and cope with the death of my grandfather who had been gassed during WW1. So she was fifteen, just lost her father in WW1, and had to look after her mother who was very worried. They lived in Bethnal Green, and many times had to spend the night in the shelter in the underground, but also didn鈥檛 bother sometimes. She got back one night from a subway to find that her house had been blown to bits, she had lost her dog, all of her identification had gone. It must have been a very un-nerving experience.

My grandfather, Charles, was in fact (I believe) the first man to drive a tank in WW1. When they were paraded through the streets, they were covered in canvases and called Russian snowploughs for security reasons. And the first time he ever saw action, quite horrifically, fired one shell at one man, so you can imagine one huge shell and one small man, quite horrific. The story is in the imperial war museum I believe.

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