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I was a little girl when the first bombs started falling and I remember we used to hide under the stairs, or run out to the Anderson shelter in the garden. We used to listen to the bombs. They’d make a whistling noise- but just before falling they’d go silent. We children used to count from 1 to 10- if we were still there by the end of the count we knew the bombs weren’t for us.

During the Coventry Blitz on November 14th I went into a shelter with my dog, Ginger, and my parents. There was a street warden shining his torch and he said to my mother ‘The Cathedral’s gone’. She said ‘That’s God showing He’s in this suffering with us- that was His house’. There was a great big thud. A bomb had landed right on the side of the shelter- but we all got out alive.

The next day I went with my Grandpa, who lived with us, down to the fields at the back of our house. He took a spade and dug out a little brook. All the neighbours came with water jugs- we had no gas or electricity because of the bombing.

And then I was evacuated. It was my first time on a train- it looked like a great big monster as it pulled into the station! There were hundreds of little children with big labels pinned to them and gas masks over their shoulders. I was with my Big Cousin- who must’ve been all of 8 years! We were heading for North Wales, and had to change at Crewe. Whilst we were there at the station there was an air raid, and we had to hide under the stairs. We were away for 18 months. I used to get little parcels in shoeboxes from home- nothing much, just sweets, a comic, some bits and bobs. In the April Blitz my mother was buried under the ruins of Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital for 2 days- but she was dug out alive.

I remember being shot at by German aircraft as I played in the street with other children. Planes used to fly very low in those days, so that you could even see the pilots. We ran like mad.

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