大象传媒

At the outbreak of war I was ten years old, my sister was twenty, my mother and father about 45. He had a bad stroke at age 42 and although he eventually returned to his job as universal grinder at the Humber Factory he was quite disabled and walked with a very bad limp.

September 1939, war is announced, straight away folk are struggling to find means to blacking out, the first day and sirens sounded, we weren鈥檛 sure if it was a practice, we could hear gun fire! Food and clothes rationing commences.

I鈥檓 a student at All Saints' School; an offer to evacuate to Polesworth is made, many go.

One of the most frightening things I can ever remember is being bombed, it seemed to go on night after night, my sister and I sheltered with our mother under the stairs, it was even worse for her as she was deaf and could only feel the house shake, she didn鈥檛 know what was going on, the drone of the heavy bombers overhead; a second later, you knew you would get the nearest bombs. I screamed as they hit all around us. My dad was usually at the Hand and Heart Pub in Gosford Street. He would dodge from shelter to shelter to get home; he was in their cellar on the night of the November 14th blitz.

One morning in particular I remember after a very bad night picking my way through to Cheylesmore School from where I lived in Irving Road, a whole row of houses in Charter house road were down on both sides we heard there were landmines and torpedoes.

After a while I changed schools going to Bunley School. It may have been safer on the outskirts, I wasn鈥檛 there for long. My mother鈥檚 family who lived in Oxford fetched me to stay with them at Headington giving up their own privacy to put up so many evacuees including 2 boys age about 15 from St. Clements Dane School, Shepard鈥檚 Bush, London, one of the boys, Dicky Melbourne was a lovely lad, he went on to be a pilot. Oxford was full of evacuees needing school places. It was a long time before we had a classroom; needless to say I lost a lot of schooling.

At the beginning of the war my sister was engaged to be married, to Norman Davies. He was quickly called up so the wedding was brought forward. As she was not quite 21 she needed permission from our father. Norman was in the 8th army He served mostly in the Middle East. One time we saw him on the news at the cinema, the lads receiving post from home, my sister went to see this many times.

During the November blitz, my mother was in her mother鈥檚 neighbours (Anderson) shelter in Grantham Street. A truly terrible night, the next day all communications were down. It was a great worry but mother鈥檚 eldest bother, Sam Ives, found them and brought them in his car to Oxford, where we were reunited, they had nothing and could only stay a couple of days, they had to get back to work, my grandmother Ives stayed and shared a bedroom with Gwen and me.

Mum and dad managed to rent an upstairs room at a house in Hinkley travelling into Coventry each day. Mum going to our old home to make dad鈥檚 meal, difficult for a couple with disabilities, not really enough cash for extra accommodation. After one bad night, buses couldn鈥檛 get through to the city centre. Mum was dropped off nearby and she picked her way to Irving road. Through the burning rubble, she was not able to hear whether there was an alert on, my dad managed to get her on the works bus to go back to Hinkley, it was very stressful, it was during this time my mother developed an ulcer to add the problems.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Anastasia Travers a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of Pamela Williams and has been added to the site with his permission. Pamela Williams fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.