大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Thelma Sharman of the CSV 大象传媒 Coventry and Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of Joan Powney and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I STILL MADE IT TO ART SCHOOL!

I was nine years old, it was a lovely day in September 1939. I was the eldest of three girls. The youngest, born in August, had just been baptised at the chapel my
grand parents attended. I could hear the leg of lamb spitting and roasting in the black oven range ready for lunch and smell the mint picked from granddad鈥檚 allotment. Mother had been chopping so finely for mint sauce, when a voice from the radio said in a very sombre voice 鈥� So we are at war with Germany鈥�. It didn鈥檛 mean much to a nine year old, but I could tell by their faces that it did to the adults. They started to talk about getting the train back to Coventry in case bombing started. I was convinced the bombs would be coming down any minute. I was so relieved when we arrived back home, I felt much safer, and life carried on as much as before except for rationing, gas masks, taping windows and of course blackout.
But eventually the bombing did start. So my sister and I were sent to stay with my Aunt and Uncle who lived up on the moors in Lancashire. I loved it there, the war seemed as if it was in another world and had nothing to do with us, except I worried about my parents and baby sister.
One night the sirens in the valley below must have gone off although I did not hear them, but suddenly my Aunt was shaking me awake and saying 鈥� Where鈥檚 Barbara?鈥� Of course I hadn鈥檛 a clue. Apparently a stray landmine bomb on a parachute had gone off in the village. It blew out most of the windows in the village but I hadn鈥檛 heard a thing. We eventually found my sister sitting in the cellar, her gas mask on. trembling like a leaf.
It was the most exciting thing they had there and I was quite miffed I had missed it.
We came back home after a while, as Mum felt if we had to go it would be better for us to all go together!
So it was back to having tea early and going down to the Anderson shelter in the back garden for the night.
However, my sister and I slept comfortably in the bunk Dad had made, although there was the constant noise of ack-ack guns, the droning of the German aircraft and the sound of shrapnel dropping on the roof tops.
Then, we were told we could not go to school as a bomb had hit it and caused it to be unsafe. So about three times a week a teacher came to various houses and tried to instil some sort of education into the children of the area.
They must have done their job well as my sister and her friend passed the exam to go to the girls grammar school at Stoke Park. My friend and I passed the exam to go to the Art School which was a large house called 鈥楬ill Crest鈥� in Radford. The actual Art School in Ford Street had suffered bomb damage and wasn鈥檛 being used.
After the bombing of Coventry in November 1940 we were not allowed to go into the City.

When eventually we did go we were utterly shocked at the devastation. The Coventry I had known was gone forever.

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