大象传媒

My name is Irene. When world war two started in September 1939 I was
12 years old. I lived in London with my mother and my father and my 4 brothers and sisters: I was the eldest.
My father was in a reserved occupation so he did not go to war, but instead he stayed behind to work. We had quite a large house with 3 floors, my bedroom was on the middle floor .
I remember the day I heard the first air raid siren; it was the 3rd September and I had been down to a local shop to buy sweets. I was walking home and I heard the sound of the siren. It was only a practice drill but from then on I heard that siren almost every night. During the war many bombs were dropped on London and there were sirens every night.
I usually slept through the night without hearing the sirens but I remember one night vividly. I had woken up to the siren that night to find a bomb had fallen close to my house. I remember waking up to find that some of the ceiling had fallen down on top of me. And as I got out of bed and onto the landing I realised that a glass panel at the back of the house had smashed due to the force from the bomb. Shards of glass covered the floor of the stairway I was walking down. My family and I all got out safely and made it to a neighbour's house. When we got there I realised I had made it out without a scratch on me. I was amazed that I had walked all through the shards of glass without shoes on and I did not even have a scratch. We were soon moved to a local school shelter for safety .
The other vivid memory I have is from when I used to go to evening classes. During these classes we learnt shorthand, danced and socialised. Anyway, one day I was walking back from classes. I was walking alone up a hill. As I was walking I heard the screeching sound of a Doodlebug.
I started to run and as I was running I heard the screeching noise stop and the Doodlebug crashing down close to me. Luckily I was not hurt because it wasn't close enough. But, looking back I don't even think I was even that frightened, I just got on with it.

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