大象传媒

War Time Memories
By
Mrs Audrey Notter

I was thirteen when the Second World War started. I well remember 3rd September 1939, the announcement on the radio, my mother and father crying in each other鈥檚 arms, understanding only too well what was going to happen. We children had to live through the horrors to understand their distress. Birmingham- my home, was an obvious target for German Bombers, although after all these years it seems somewhat unreal, at the time the factories and rail links had to be put out of action to be hinder production and distribution.

The trouble with bombs is that they are no respecter of persons, where they land they kill, maim, and destroy. During one heavy air raid the center of Birmingham was under attack for hours, Marks and Spencer took a direct hit which resulted in the collapse of several floors into a huge pile of rubble, the only things that were recognizable were dozens of old fashioned cash registers lying amongst the debris. The smell that lingered from the explosives, burst water and gas mains, and still burning rubble was quite sickening and yet the people of Birmingham would go into town to gaze at the awful destruction.

One night at the height of the Blitz the bombers dropped thousands of incendiary bombs many of which lodged in the trees on the common land near to my home. The scene was like a giant firework display luckily there were stirrup pumps, water buckets and sand bags just about everywhere and even people of my age were helping to douse the fires.

In the local park were two anti-aircraft guns, as far as I know the only thing they ever shot down was the local barrage balloon which was more or less fought over by the housewives of the district for fabric was hard to come by and this was free.

The night Coventry was bombed was a quiet night for Birmingham but on the south side of the city we could here the noise of the high explosives and see the reflections of the fires in the sky.

One night we lost our lovely 鈥淧rince of Wales鈥� theatre, bombs and fire reduced the building to a blackened shell, the home of so many pantomimes never to be rebuilt.

The local guns fired many shells and because what goes up must come down the amount of shrapnel falling on the district was rather like a hail storm, the nose cones of the shells were highly sought after by the local children 鈥� quite amazing what became important during these frightening times.

There was a Heinkel bomber on show in the gardens of the 鈥淗all of Memory鈥� in Birmingham town centre, goodness knows where it was shot down or indeed how it was transported there. The plane looked quite small because the undercarriage had gone but the Swastikas on the body and wings gave it a somewhat menacing look.

My grandparents were bombed out of their home and came to live with us bringing with them chickens ducks and geese turning our garden into a farm yard. One lovely goose called Daisy was quite a favorite 鈥� she would go for a walk with my grandmother and honk at any noise, in particular aeroplane engines. We realized one day that Daisy was missing only to be told she had been sold to the local butcher. I could not forgive my grandmother for such an awful deed; no doubt she was a good business woman. We children, however, could only see Daisy as a pet.

Wartime memories would take weeks to transfer to paper. The items I have set down are perhaps 1% of my teenage years. These memories have left me with an everlasting hatred of War and to see children on TV injured and so frightened in the modern war zones makes me wonder will people never learn.

Mrs Audrey Notter

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