大象传媒

This story was submitted to the people's War Site by Karley Macewan and has been added to the website on behalf of Mrs Stella Firton with her permission and she fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

In 1940, the months of August and September, Stella took her baby brother to the local sweetshop. The war had been going on for a year now, but what happened next was frightfully unexpected. As Stella and her baby brother were returning home, an unexpected German Aircraft managed to get through. It started to machine gun them both. There was an air raid shelter nearby which Stella miraculously spotted and she ran for her life with her baby brother in her hands. They dashed for the shelter, and were then safe. Stella said if she had not reached that shelter when she did, both of them would have been killed.

Stella and her brother were evacuated from their home in Rushden to Northamptonshire, having to leave their mother and baby brother. They both went to very kind homes which she felt secure in. After a few months had gone by, Stella鈥檚 mother stopped writing to her. What Stella did not know was that her mother and her little brother had been killed when an aerial torpedo got a direct hit on the air raid shelter they were in. Stella said that she had a gut feeling, but it wasn't stated, until one day when her father came to visit her. Stella was waiting outside when she saw her dad walking towards her. She noticed he was wearing a trilby. She then fainted.

I asked Stella how she felt after. She said, 鈥淚 felt bitter for years and thought there was no god, as my innocent baby brother was killed, tradgically.鈥�

Stella told me that her family鈥檚 names are written on the memorial stone in London.

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