大象传媒

This story is transcribed by me , Graham Shepherd , from notes provided by Eillen Witherington , and will be added to the site with her permission . She understands the site conditions .

I was living in Manchester in those days and my school was Fereto Convent , Alexandra Park.

I was evacuated to Leek in Staffordshire , near Rudyard Lake . My brother was evacuated to Blackpool with his school , but our mother had to bring both of us back home because our father was ill , and unfortunately died .

Since he fought in WW1, he used to say that the Germans will never get here , but they did of course - every night !

One morning during December 1940 , when I was in the bath getting ready for school the sirens sounded , and there was a tremendous bank from a land mine which blew all the doors and windows out and me out of the bath - I was very lucky to survive .

We lived near to the A V Roe factory , where part of the Lancaster Bomber was being built and one day during school holiday myself and three friends were all at one of the friends house for the day and when it was time to go we all walked down the road to the bus stop to go home
We heard the sound of a plane approaching and saw it was following the main road . It started machine gunning us and the bullets hit the pavement but did not hit us - we were just four school girls .

On another occasion during the school holidays , my brother and I were in the lounge of the ferry crossing the Irish sea to visit our Grandma , since my mother who was in business did not have time for us , when suddenly there was loud bang and we were all thrown about and the engines stopped . A few minutes later seamen in civis came in soaked in oil , and sat along the gangway with their worry beads . They were Greek seamen , and their ship had gone down Fortunately ours didn't . Of course there were no lights or radar at the time . We were very lucky again .

A few days later we were bombed out again , so my mother said enough is enough and we went to live with my Aunty in Leyland . My Aunty was my mums sister and she had her own family in addition to me my brother and mum . She also had a woman with two small children billeted on her from London . I don鈥檛 know where we all slept .

My husband and I went to the same school and when the war came he went into the Navy and his ship was bombed at the Salurno landings , and he ended up in hospital in Algiers . He eventually came home and we got married 60 years ago on 15th August . We went Llandudno for our honeymoon . One day we went up Snowdon on the little train and when we came down everyone was singing and dancing and loving each other . We asked what the occasion was and were told that the Japs had surrendered .

I hope that it never happens again .

My husband

My husband died in January 2005 after 60 years of marriage . As we went to the same school I had known him a lifetime . He went into the Navy at 17 and his first journey was across the Atlantic to St Johns , Newfoundland , Halifax , Nova Scotia , Boston , New York , New Orleans , Caracas , Venezuela and across to the West Indies and Aruba before crossing the Atlantic for home .

He was then in the Med for some years and at the landings in Sicily at Salano . His ship was bombed by the Italian Air Force while in Valetta Harbour , Malta and he ended up in hospital in Algeria .

He told me about an incident which happened while in the Med , when he went to bed one night and was suddenly woken by a very noisy battle going on and he dived out of bed and put his tin hat on and ran upon deck thinking there was a great battle going on . However they were celebrating the New Year and all the noise was in celebration .

So here are both our war time experiences at a very tender age .

I wonder how today's 17 year olds would react to this - they would never do it .

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