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The earliest incident of which I have any clear memory must be night of November 14, 1940, when I was 2 years and 8 months. My home was in Kenilworth, Warwickshire, situated some 7 miles or so from Coventry which, that night suffered a massive bombing attack — the ‘Blitz’ — by German aircraft intent on destroying what was then a very important engineering base, vital to the British war effort.

In common with many other large centres of population many of those who lived and worked in Coventry had made alternative arrangements for accommodation outside and away from the city in order to avoid the risks associated with frequent enemy air raids. At that particular time my mother, a widow (my father having been killed in a road accident two years previously when I was aged just 8 months), had taken in, as ‘lodgers’, a couple who had a home on the outskirts of the city. Their name was MacCrostie and the man owned a men’s outfitters shop in Corporation Street. His wife, I recall, was a very nice Chilean lady. The shared the only double bedroom in the house whilst my mother had a second small bedroom and my brother, nine years older than I, shared a third one.

On the night in question, I distinctly remember a group of us standing at the front-door step, looking towards a huge, orange glow coming from the direction of Coventry and my being lifted up, by Mr. MacCrostie (known as ‘Uncle mac’) to witness the scene and listen to the nose of aircraft overhead, which, as usual, had been preceded by the wail of air-raid sirens warning of the impending arrival of enemy aircraft. The warning was a loud siren, varying in pitch, whereas the ‘All Clear’ was a continuous tone. My mother later told me that, whatever the sound, whenever I had asked whether it was the ‘All Clear’ (or ‘Or Keo’, as I evidently pronounced it) that was being sounded, she always, naturally, told me it was the ‘All Clear’, regardless of the reality.

Whilst observing the events of that night, Mr MacCrostie commented, ‘Well, there goes the shop,’ and indeed, when he managed to pick his way into the city centre the next day, his fears proved to be well-founded. He later retrieved and brought back several coins from his burnt out safe. These had melted and become fused together in a mass of metal due to the intense heat caused by incendiary bombs.

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