大象传媒

My first recollection of the war was my father digging a hole in the garden for the Anderson air raid shelter. The first time my parents, my sister and I went into the shelter following an air raid warning, we all thought that it would be better to stay in bed and take a chance because it was so damp and claustrophobic. We might have thought differently if any bombs had fallen nearby!

When leaving for school I always had to make sure I had my gas mask with me which I carried in a cardboard box with a string attached.
On the way home my classmates and I called in a local shop to buy a slice of washed carrot to chew on the way back. We missed our sweets because of the rationing, but the carrots saved our teeth!

I don't remember ever being hungry, but I do remember my mother, who served school dinners, coming home with left over puddings, particularly sponge & custard.

My father, who was an Air Raid Warden, had
a stirrup pump in case of fire from incendary bombs. Fortunately, it was never used. The only bomb dropped in the area where we lived was near my school where I found some shrapnel outside the classroom
window.

At night we would watch the great beams flashing across the sky as the search lights looked for German planes. Although our house was quite near to the Goodyear factory and Henry Meadows, where Rolls Royce
engines were made for aircraft, all the planes continued overhead on their way to bomb Coventry leaving us unscathed.

Our family was very lucky as we suffered no casualties during the war.

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