大象传媒

"i'm a pupil from ~Heaton Manor Comprehensive School, Newcastle Upon-Tyne, entering Mr Raymond Pope's story onto the website, and they fully understand the website terms and conditions of use.

I was born on the 19th June 1935 and was only 5 years old when the war started. I lived in Jesmond and attended Cragside school, I started there on the 24th August 1940. There was lots of bombing in the area and the houses opposite the school had been bombed. I remember me and my brother getting the number 4 bus to school and seeing all the ruined houses.
The goods station was bombed aswell. The Germans were going after all the docks and bridges, they used to drop them from very high so they didn鈥檛 really have good aim.
Me and my brothers went to Armstrong bridge and found this big crater. We went in and I found the big piece of shiny metal, we played in there for a bit and then we went home. Dad asked where I got the metal from so I had to tell him where I got it from so I had to tell him the truth 鈥� he was furious and gave us al a good hiding. My dad was about 6鈥� tall and it seemed as though he had size 20 shoes! When we got smacked it was always over the knee. He warned us not to do it again, which I can now see now as there might have been unexploded bombs.
Another thing I remember was when they built lots of air raid shelters. My grandma and uncle lived next door so we decided the knock the wall down that separated us and share a shelter. When the alarms went off we all had to sit inside the shelter. I wasn鈥檛 really scared when the alarms went off, you would hear the sirens and then the aeroplanes but I was never in the shelter for a long time. The only part I didn鈥檛 like was having to get out of bed and going downstairs in the middle of the night and then having to go back after only a short time. When my uncle and dad built the shelter the hole looked quite big and, being inquisitive as I was, I tried to look but fell in as I was so small. The next thing I knew I was on the kitchen table with lots of faces staring down at me 鈥� I had obviously knocked myself out!

I was evacuated to Keswick in Cumbria on the 18th July 1941 when I was six. The first thing I remember was the huge post office on the corner off the main street. I think we went there by bus. We walked to the side entrance and up the stairs where there was this large oval table and on the table there were big jars of milk and there was a tin box in the middle. Everybody sat around the table but I was too small so my brother lifted me up and put me on the table and I had the box of biscuits all to myself! That afternoon a lady came and collected me and my brother and we went to a hotel and stayed the night but we had to sleep on the floor. The next morning the two ladies came and we walked about one and a half miles. One of the ladies took my brother to a bungalow and I was taken to a house half a mile away. You would think that me and my brother would see each other on special occasions but I didn鈥檛 see him for about eighteen months later. I only seen him twice, once when my father came down and we went to the park.
The people I stayed with were getting old and I was only six so I used to wet the bed a lot. The lady I stayed with was very strict and I never once ate at the table with her. I always had to sit at a round coffee table in the corner by myself.
She had a very big back garden and had loads of different types of flowers growing there but she never let me help her. I remember I didn鈥檛 have many toys or books but I did have a snowdome. I would shake it every morning and night. One day I had found that it was broken. I never found out who it was but she had a cat so I think that it might have knocked it off the windowsill, either that or she broke it herself but she gave me a good hiding 鈥� always on the back of the legs.
I stayed there for three months, then a lady came and moved me into another accommodation. The lady I stayed with was lovely and so was her husband, who was the manager of the garage next to the river. I remember sitting with her in front of the fire talking and she said 鈥榳ould you come up and help me make the bed鈥�. I was shocked as I had been with a person who hadn鈥檛 let me do anything for so long, and here I was with somebody who I had just met asking me to help her.
The first night I slept there, I never wet the bed again.

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