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I was one of six living just outside Bromyard when the war broke out; I was 14 and due to leave school. I do remember my mother struggling with the blackout. We had to cover the windows with material, I don’t know if we had to buy it or if it was provided, we had four bedrooms and were high up on the hill. We could only use the rooms with the blackout. I’m not sure but I don’t think we had it in the front room.

In Bromyard there were no street lights during the blackout. Being a country girl we were used to the dark but they weren’t in town. We had to use torches and be really careful to keep the beam down.

We had a large garden with an orchard at the bottom. There was a big hole where the Anderson shelter was going to be built but my father wasn’t very handy, he was a business man and never managed to put it up.

A lady and her child were evacuated from London and stayed with us. She ended up working for my father in the office.

I worked as a nanny to 3 children in a pub for 18 months where I remember pulling an illegal pint at 16 years old.

My aunt and two cousins from Leominster were going for a holiday in Weston. My mother said I could go with them because I’d been working for 18 months without a break and I’d never been to the seaside. We had bed and breakfast in a big high house, we all slept in the same room, I was sharing a bed with my cousin. On the first night suddenly my aunt was shouting ‘get of bed’, and then ‘no not that side’ as we jumped out towards the window. I could see really clearly and so close the face of a pilot in his plane, flying down the road, the noise was horrendous. He had a mask on and all his machine guns were firing. The glass from the window flew over our heads so we had jumped out the best side after all.

We were rushed down to the Anderson shelter, the landlady and her family, eleven of us in all and spent the night there. The pilot must have been going to Bristol. Weston was said to be on fire that night. There were terrific fires and lots of screaming and crying. Our house was in the middle of thee rows of houses; when we came out of the shelter the next morning ours was the only row standing, the others had all been flattened.

It took 24 hours to get us out of Weston and back to Bromyard in coaches but it was weeks before our suitcases were returned.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Jan Doran of the CSV Action Desk at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Audrey Walwyn and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions

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