大象传媒

First night of the war, I was in Leeds and the air raid siren went and we went down to the cellar, and stayed there all night, it was a false alarm. The next morning I went to work. I was an apprentice at a firm McClaren鈥檚 that made diesel engines for the admiralty, and agriculture . Started work at 0730 and you had to clock in. One night there was a raid on Leeds. I was with my friend who was also 17 and we鈥檇 joined the Home Guard. They鈥檇 put us on fire watching duties during a raid. We had to get on the roof which was north lights with glass and walkways through, and put out fire bombs when they landed. Then we came down during a lull and wnet in the passageway between drawing office and the block and planes came over and dropped a stick of bombs and hit a railway bridge. The rain had gone under the bridge. The blast blew my friend and I down the passageway. We weren鈥檛 huirt, just covered in dust. We helped clean up, the machine shop got hit, the roof blew off the main office building. We walked home and it took about an hour to get home, there were pipes and fire hoses all over the place. McClaren鈥檚 got back in business again and when I was 18 I joined the forces

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