大象传媒

Wartime Memories

February 9th 1943
Time: 08.30
Place: Winchester, Hyde Street.

My name was Jean Carter at the time.

I am 6 years old and live with my mother and brother in a n old house attached to nine more, they are all the same and are situated up a big alley way in an open space. There is no electricity just oil lamps, candles and two fires. The house consists of two bedrooms and two downstairs, one very old scullery, which houses the tin bath. No water, for it is outside. One tap for ten houses frozen in February. The toilet is up the path in the garden. Overlooking this is an orchard by the scullery.

It is wartime and February 9th was unforgettable, for we heard a plane flying very low. It almost touched the top of the trees in the orchard. The time was about 08.30, getting ready for school. We looked out of the window, a German plane was droning overhead. The sound was really loud, dashing all of us under the table. There was no warning from the siren. We always go to the shelter cellar at Marstons Brewery, but there was no time to get there. Then there was silence, an almighty bang, an explosion, the house shook and debris all around us, flying timbers off the roof and sheds. Trees uprooted, people screaming, sound of fire engines and ambulances that came to the scene. We all came out in a state of shock, dusty and dishevelled. There was no alley way anymore. No Durnfords the butchers shop, the other shops were gone, just nothing, only bricks to climb over. The Red Cross or Salvation Army came with blankets and hot soup to help us. The airaid men came to shift the rubble to make a place for us to sit. We went back to our home later, which was still standing, but there were no windows and doors left, and in the bedroom there were bullet holes around the walls. We were moved later to Colebrook Street where I spent the next fourteen years and my mother forty years.

I think God was on our side that day. Some of our neighbours were gone.

A day I will never forget.

Written by J.M. East
Rugby
Warwickshire

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