大象传媒

My mother was frightened by thunder. As a child I could never quite understand this, until one day she told me her story.

In November 1940, at the age of 18 she was involved in what is now referred to the November Blitz.

She had gone from her family home in Milton Street, Stoke, Coventry to visit a friend. Her elder sister Eva was in the process of getting ready to go out for the evening.

Whilst at her friend's house, the air raid siren sounded, so she said goodbye to her friend with the intention of returning home and going to the local air raid shelter. Half way back, she was stopped by an ARP warden and asked where she was going - when she said 'Milton Street' the ARP Warden told her 'You can't, it's not safe - it's all been flattened!'

My mother was directed to the nearest air raid shelter, and when she looked around, she recognised a few people - one in particular, a lady called Doris Price, who was in there with her three small children. My mother had red varnish on her nails, and one of the children came over to her and touched her fingers saying 'ooh pretty nails!'.

The bombing continued outside - it seemed to get louder and become heavier. (My mother had told me of incidences in the war where the Italians had flown over Coventry and machine gunned the rescue workers as they pulled people from ruined buildings.)

The air raid shelter where my mother was taking refuge was under a row of houses. The houses took a direct hit and to quote my mother 'collapsed like a pack of cards' onto the air raid shelter beneath.

My mother came round and began to claw her way out to the surface - there was noise and confusion all around her. She managed to get to the surface and get out of the collapsed shelter. She then stayed to help out two other people trying to get out - one was a man (name unkmown) - and the other was Doris Price. Everyone else was dead.

The man took my now hysterical mother back to her home - which was standing, intact and undamaged. Her father was waiting for her, having refused to go into the shelter until he knew where my mother was. Everyone was safe - the ARP Warden had made a mistake.

The man escorting my mother knew my grandfather and greeted him with 'You're Arthur Chapman aren't you. Your daughter has just saved my life'.

My mother's family then made their way to the edge of the now burning City (my aunt still dressed in her finery - had never made it to her evening out), and they paid a lorry driver to take them to a village near Northampton to my mother's aunt. My mother also told me that when they arrived there, they were taken to the village hall, and that my mother was the first 'casualty' of the war that the ladies based there had seen.

My mother was lucky - she escaped with cuts and bruises. Doris Price's three children were killed outright, and when Doris eventually managed to get home, her husband gave her a good hiding for being careless.

However, the emotional scars of what my mother endured remained with her for the rest of her life, and every time it thundered, it brought back memories of that fateful evening in Coventry.

Sadly my mother passed away in 1989 - but I feel sure she would have wanted others to know her story.

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