大象传媒

Back in the 40/s we did have bombs fall on Bromsgrove. This particular night my husband and I heard a bump on the roof. We went outside to see hundreds of incendiary bombs lighting up the countryside all the men in our lane were A.R.W鈥檚 and put bombs out with sands and earth, while I went into the air raid shelter with my two young children.

The big Bombers soon arrived, the first one dropping into a field at Burcot. The blast from it hit a lady in her bedroom opposite and killed her. The next one landed in the field adjacent to our bungalow but did not explode and the bomb squad came later and let it off. They carried on dropping about five bombs. These days were not very nice. In and out of the shelter with babies was a nightmare.

As for the rationing 2 to 3 ounzes of everything was pretty awful, but we managed. One thing I missed was my butter. We never saw a banana.

Although we didn鈥檛 go hungry, it was very hard. The clothes ration only let us have the essentials. The coupons didn鈥檛 allow us very much. Shoes were worst and we often had to put cardboard in to keep the rain out. It meant just make do and mend.

I don鈥檛 think anyone would believe the things we had to go without. This is only a brief episode of Bromsgrove during the war, could go on for hours. We all thanked God when it was over.

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