大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Susan M. Raistrick, of Bradford Libraries, on behalf of Constance M. Galilee, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

It was a very lively night indeed. As usual, at about 6 o'clock when it was dark, we heard the inevitable 'vrum-vrum' of the Luftwaffe.
Our house was next to an airfield, just a small one, which repaired Spitfires. There was a battery of guns a field or so away behind the house. When they fired the blast blew the doors open unless they were locked, and we never locked doors because people caught in the street during a raid might need shelter. The heavy velvet curtains would lift to the horizontal, stay a second, then drop again. Of course all the lights were out during raids.
Red-hot shrapnel rolled down all the house roofs, and it was a miracle that no fires started that way. If you went out in the evening it was prudent to wear a 'tin-hat'. (Relics of World War I).
Flares were dropped from the German planes, so bright that print could be read without difficulty. People put them out with metal dustbin lids.
Our village was in the centre of a triangle with Wolverhampton, Coventry and Birmingham at the three points. We could see the lights from the German planes above the clouds so they briefly signalled their positions. An occasional barrage balloon went up in flames, and the growl of the planes went on for hours. We could could see the sky lit up by the flames from Coventry and Birmingham.
I was due to travel home to Bradford the next morning. I set off at 8 a.m. and arrived at 2 a.m.the next day.
There were still some local buses running, so I got to Birmingham without much difficulty. At least to the perimeter of the town.
It is impossible to describe adequately the chaos in Birmingham that day. Fortunately I wore very stout shoes, as the whole of the pavements and roads were ankle deep in shattered glass. Gas mains were on fire all over the place.
It gives some idea of the force behind the blast of the bombs when you see a motor car teetering on the roof edge of a very high 3 storey building. I saw street after street of houses with fronts, but no backs. The station, when I got there, hoping for a train to Bradford, was on fire. The Station Hotel had no windows and the curtains were ablaze. The station platform and booking office were deserted. Gradually people drifted in red-eyed from a dreadful night in the shelters, hoping to get away.
Of course the railway line was shattered and no trains were running. Eventually a bus arrived to take travellers for the South to the nearest rail point. I of course wanted to go North.
At 6 o'clock in the evening a loud hailer told us to book tickets for a train going "North". Nobody knew just where. We all piled in, standing in corridors, sitting on luggage, no food, no water. Crying children tired and hungry, and mothers at breaking point.
My father had met every train at Bradford Station from midday onwards. Rumours of the Blitz had percolated through. I was never so thankful to see anyone in my life!
We gave a lift to an airman from Shipley who was on compassionate leave. It seems he had managed to scramble out of a blazing aircraft having made a 'dry' landing, but had watched helplessly as 'his' crew burned to death. He cried "I can't get the smell out of my nose, and I can't sleep".
I thought myself very lucky indeed in comparison with that.

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