大象传媒

I was an 11 year old boy the night the bomb dropped. Dad was the Chief Air Raid Warden on the Cherry Tree Estate during the war. When the sirens went off we used to have to hide underneath the kitchen table 鈥� me, my Mam, my Dad and my three sisters.

One particular night my Dad had come home dressed in his Warden鈥檚 outfit, gas mask and lamp, and no doubt happy having had a few halves in the local pub, when the sirens went off. We all dived for cover and waited. First it was quiet, then came the drone of aeroplane engines, and then there was the biggest bang we had ever heard.

We heard Dad screaming. We all jumped out from under the kitchen table to find Dad stuck in the tin bath, covered in soot. 鈥淚鈥檝e lost me hand鈥�, he was shouting. The bomb, which had landed in our back garden, hadn鈥檛 blown his hand off, only the bulb from his Wardens Lamp.

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