大象传媒

"The house has gone Anne." Five words I shall never forget. They were spoken by my father during the early days of WWII. We had been living in Birmingham at the time, at a place called Cerdington.
The air raid siren had sounded, our parents rushed us down to our air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden; five children aged 7 years to 2 years old. Shortly after, a whistling sound followed by a huge bang, the force of the blast threw us to one side of the shelter, we children were terrified.
Later, when dad tried to open the shelter door he could only force it so far, it was blocked with debris.Then we heard some one asking if we were okay, it was an air raid warden, he helped to get us out. That is when dad said those words, we had lost everything. Only in our night clothes neighbours took us wrapped in blankets to their house, they took care of us.
Rehoused again living in another part of Birmingham,a place called Lea Hall, the same thing happened. I don't know why, but neither my older brother or sister or myself can remember that occasion.
Evacuated to Cannock Chase, where I started my first school at a place called Norton Cains, I heard there was a prisoner of war camp not too far away from our house.
Due to dad's occupation in transport and his knowledge of the country, not having to depend on the road signs that had all been removed to deter enemy use of direction, we returned to Birmingham again not far from our first home. The windows at the front had been damaged and were held mostly by the camaflouge strips of paper for a short time until things got quieter.
We children had to do our part as well wearing a lapel badge. It was white with a large latter 'S' in the centre surrounded by the world 'salvage.' It was our duty to go and collect old newspaper and cardboard and tins and take them to a depot close by.
The bits of bomb shrapnel, some still hot, we put into a wheelbarrow.
During play time at school many of the older pupils would be knitting scarves or gloves for the troops.
After the war had ended and peace was restored, parties and dancing in streets lifted everybody's spirits. Flags and bunting everywhere with welcome home signs displayed from houses. We never knew till later, dad had been delivering dangerous goods from factories to different military bases around the country. He also helped clean the destruction of Coventry City and the cathedral, it upset him very much.
Mother did her very best to keep the home together, I can still see her now queuing up for what ever she could get at the shops.
It has been very hard for me to put this in words, but I felt it my duty to do so.
My parents never held any grudges afterwards to anybody. God bless them both.

This story was submitted to the People's War website by a volunteer of the Stoke CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mr T. Rogers and has been added tothe site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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