大象传媒

1941/1942. Peter was born 1937. I was living in Streetly with my parents in my grandfather's house and he was a widower. One younger brother Christopher. Large detached house with double garage, large garden built about 1934 on Thornhill Road. I used to go to the Park on my own even though I was 5 years old and no one thought it was unsafe (unlike now).In the park I would see the scorched bracken burned by falling bombs, probably incendiary as there were no big craters, and lying all around were strips of aluminium foil. I used to pick up the foil and collect it for fun. I learned later that this foil was dropped from the air by the RAF to deceive German bombers. The bombs created quite large fires so the bombers thought that they had hit somewhere important. My father was in the Home Guard as he was medically unfit to join the forces and my mother was a housewife looking after grandfather as well as her own family. They had a maid throughout the War, Clara. Grandfather was a successful builder and built the house himself. When my parents went to live with my Grandfather, their furniture went into store at Lewis' in Birmingham and was subsequently destroyed when the depositary was bombed. My mother was nearly killed by a piece of schrapnell when she went outside one evening and hearing a thud beside her she turned round to see it. Grandfather had some fireworks on VE Day and invited the neighbours around, and this was the first time I had ever seen fireworks. I worked in the Department of Health and Social Security, and am now retired.

[personal details removed by moderator]

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