大象传媒

I was born on November 19th. 1940 at Leicester City General Hospital at a time of severe air raids on the city and neighbouring Coventry. My mother told me that when the air-raid siren sounded, the staff would start moving the patients onto mattresses on the floor beneath their beds, as it was thought to be safer there, if the hospital took a direct hit. However, after this had happened once or twice, most of the patients found it so nerve-racking with the iron bedsteads rattling above their heads every time a bomb fell outside that they preferred to stay on top of their beds and take their chances!

On the evening of my birth there was another bombing raid and while my father was visiting the hospital to see his wife and baby daughter, a message came to the wards to say that casualties were being brought in and would any visitors report to the Casualty Department to act as volunteer porters? My father responded to the request and was shocked to recognise several of his parents' neighbours, who had been brought in as casualties. All evening as he worked, helping to carry stretchers, he wondered whether his parents would be among the next batch of casualties. Fortunately, they and their house were safe and when he went to see them later that evening to give them the good news of my birth, he found their rows of terrace houses standing unscathed among surrounding piles of rubble.

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