大象传媒

this story was submitted by Wendy Young to the peoples war web site on behalf of Mrs Kathleen Shearcroft.And has been added to the site with her permission and she fully understands the site,s terms and conditions

September 3 1939 Neville chamberlain announced that we were at war with Germany. At the time I was a Red Cross Nurse working at the Prince of Wales Hospital.
A woman had been so shocked with war breaking out that she cut herself all over with a razor.I had to go into the operating theatre where she was being stitched up, to give her sips of water. She kept on saying"I've never done this before".
I was getting married in the following September, and was fortunate to have a small flat where I put all our wedding presents.
My future husband was billeted in Blackpool where he was being trained to become a Mechanic. We had planned to spend our honeymoon there. He hitchiked to London, and despite the siren going on and off, we managed to get through the wedding ceremony.The reception was held in my mothers living room.
Our first night was spent in the flat, the next evening we set out for Blackpool, in the blackout.
Later that week we received a letter to say that a bomb had fallen on the neighbours house killing the elderly couple that lived there, and destroying our flat, together with the furniture and wedding presents.
My husband continued with his training. Women who didnt have a family had to get a job, so I decided to go back to London and join my father on the buses. He was a bus driver and I became a conductress. We travelled around London in the Blackout. When I had finished work i would walk miles to get home and I always felt safe.
When I became pregnant I had to leave the buses, and my daughter was born in the March of 1943. Then I went to live with my mother in Wood Green.
My father would sleep under the table in the lounge because there was no room for him in the Anderson Shelter.
At the back of where my parents lived was the Knoll Park Estate, and on this particular night a bomb fell on the Estate killing 16 people. It blew all our windows out.Father could hear a woman next door shouting " save me save me ". He went and rescued her.
Late in 1943 I became pregnant again and I went to live in a requisitioned flat in Hornsey. I would often visit my mother in the afternoons taking Pamela with me. One afternoon a Doodle bug fell at the back of our flat, blowing the glass out of the windows and destroying Pamela's high chair. When everything was back to normal we returned. the couple that lived in the flat below us, told us to share their Morrison Shelter with them,
One night the siren went.I picked up Pamela from her cot and went downstairs and got under this thing.As i did so I felt the baby turn in my tummy(I had to go to the Prince of Wales Hospital to have him turned). That night a flying bomb fell on Alexander Palace, it demolished the Police box and demolished the flat. It was then that my mother said "Kathleen they're following you, you must get away".
I went to St Neots in Huntingdonshire with other expectant mothers. I had the baby there and went back to my mother's. But things were bad, and I decided to take the children to Blackpool. Feeling homesick, I returned home to Wood Green.

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