大象传媒

In 1940, when I was 4 years old, I was walking with my mother and her friend along Market Place, Redditch when we heard the sound of a plane coming from behind us. It flew low over us, machine gunning as it passed. A man came out of a small shop and pulled us inside. What stuck in my mind the most was that he sat mum down and gave her a cup of tea. It wasn鈥檛 until many years later that I read an account of the incident that took place on Nov 9th 1940. My sister was born on Nov 10th! No wonder the poor man was so concerned!

A month later I was sitting in the living room of our two up two down terraced house on Back Hill (Ipsley St), reading a Peter Rabbit book (we had no T.V. or radio so I read at an early age). My sister was in her pram with the hood pulled up to keep the light out and my mother had just prepared her a bottle. My dad was in the back kitchen having a wash and shave prior to going out when we heard the sound of a plane. My dad said, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 not one of ours.鈥� And the world exploded. I was thrown out of my chair, the window crashed in on top of the pram (thank God for the hood!), the doors blew off and everything went black. Mother herded us off to the pantry under the stairs and I remember seeing our black and white cat streak past. We stayed there until the raid passed and then gran, who lived down the road, sent my cousin up to fetch us. As he carried me down the road a plane came over and that is the only time during the whole of the war that I remember feeling apprehensive. In the main, all us youngsters accepted the war and all its privations without any thought. About a dozen people were killed in the raid, including a small relative of a girl who later became my friend at school, but to us it was all part of 鈥榯he war鈥� the only life we knew.

Our only casualty was our canary who lay lifeless on the bottom of his cage. My dad returned to the house to bury it and as he searched for something to wrap it in, it sat up and cheeped 鈥� shocking my dad more than the bombs!

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 war site by Jacci Phillips of the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Margaret Morley and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

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