大象传媒

When I was five years old I was put to bed in the air raid shelter. This was to save time when the siren went off.

One night my mother and I were in the air raid shelter because the siren had gone off. There was a heavy raid and I was very frightened. Suddenly, the door of the shelter disappeared !

The next day it was found in the bedroom of a neighbour in the next street. Luckily there was no one in the bed at the time as they were all in the shelter ! We can laugh now but then it definitely was NOT funny.

For those who don't know,Hull was surrounded on three sides by:

* timber yards
* railway sidings
* docks.

Consequently, we were targeted by the Luftwaffe and experienced continual nightly raids.

The street where I lived was very long and divided into little avenues. The houses were built in groups of 12, 6 to each side divided by a narrow, flagged path. Each avenue had a aid raid warden who ensured that all the families went down to the shelter when the siren went off.

On one occasion the bombs went off quite close to our avenue. All the windows in the houses were blown in and every house had a 12 inch layer of soot covering the floors. Despite all this my blackboard and easel still remained standing although everything else was flattened.

My mother was a medical secretary and worked at the Hull Royal Infirmary. She did tell me that to save time she had to sit in theatre whilst the surgeons DICTATED the follow up letters to the patient's GP. Thank goodness times have changed !

During my father's time in the army, his hands were badly damaged which prevented him from following his trade as a shoe repairer after the War.

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