大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Pennie Hedge, a volunteer from 大象传媒 London, on behalf of Anne Sheehan.

I was two months old when war broke out and my main memories of it are through my senses. By that I mean, if I close my eyes I recall images of cold, flashes of fire, thunder of bombs, the hum and moan of bombers coming and going, the different sound of fighter planes, stale smells of the air raid shelters. In other words a world of strange chaos, sights, smells, sights, sounds, disruptions. These memories can be triggered by similar sounds even today. For instance, I cannot bear to hear the sound of a baby crying since I recall a newborn baby crying on the night when we were bombed out.

It was about half past eight at night and I had crept into my parent's bed. I was three and a half. The first thing I remember is my mother calling to me "shout out Anne, shout out to me."

A bomb had dropped nearby, demolishing our house, and a wardrobe had fallen across the bed saving me but trapping me beneath it and the masonry that had fallen on top of it. Hence my mother's frantic search for me.

My brother and sister, who were much older than me were just about to go to bed, when they tried to open the door and found that it was stuck from the wall collapsing behind it. My mother had said to them "go to the front of the house and stay in the garden. Wait for me there." The shelter could not be used as it had been flooded. We were still in the house because the sirens were late that night. It was just as well, because the people first into the shelter were drowned.

Mum then sought help from the air raid wardens, who refused to reenter the building to search for me and warned her not to go in either. The risk of her being killed under the falling masonry was too high.

She defied them and entered the bedroom through the window, hoping to find me. I recall hearing my mother's voice and calling back to her. I don't remember how she extracted me from the rubble but I vividly recall her placing me in a straddled position on the window sill, one leg in, one leg out and instructing me to stay there, without moving. She climbed out into the garden and I recall noticing with some fear that she had turned grey and red all over. This strange sight was caused by a combination of blood and dust from the rumble, though I didn't realise this at the time.

She then instructed me to jump towards her on a count of three. This I did, landing in her arms, and both of us landed in the flower bed. I remember the soil on the side of my face and in my mouth, and my mother pinning me down in the earth, shielding me beneath her body. She was saying "Don't look up! Don't look up!" and pressing me even harder into the earth. I thought there were pretty lights falling but it was German planes offloading incendaries, which were now filling the skies and dropping all around us. They could burn you horribly.

At this point I was aware of a baby crying and the crying seemed to go on forever. Strangely though, as my mother was leading me out of the garden, the crying stopped very abruptly. Years later I learned from my mother that a neighbour had gone into premature labour in the middle of the bombing raid. The baby had been safely delivered by the priest, and laid to one side while he was seeing to the mother. Unfortunately in the dark and confusion, another adult helping the families, stepped on the baby by mistake and it was killed.

To this day, I still cannot cope with the sound of a small baby crying and always want to pick it up immediately.

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