大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from CSV/大象传媒 London on behalf of Alan Hook and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Hook fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was born in 1943. My mum was called Elsie Kate Hook. My mum lived in Bristol and she told me this story when I was 7 years of old, when we were living in a prefab. She was in the pictures in 1941, in the Regent Cinema in Castle Street, Bristol when Lord Haw Haw gave one of his broadcasts over the radio to state that he didn鈥檛 like Castle Street because it is too narrow, so tonight we are going to widen it for you. And they did. Whilst my mum was in the cinema one of the many air raids started, and the cinema scored a direct hit. My mum was ushered outside with others to find the street arched in flames with glass all over the road and she cut her feet, she was only 18, lost her shoe, ruined her stockings and somebody threw her into an air raid shelter and she told me if it wasn鈥檛 for that man, I wouldn鈥檛 be here. When the all clear sounded she made her way home to find the house had gone along with most of the street, so she walked up to her sisters, my aunt Ethel, and said 鈥淐an I stay here?鈥� No 8 Cassell Road, and all she had was the clothes she stood up in. She stayed there and I was born in that house in 1943.

I've been married for 43 years, I have 3 lovely daughters, my eldest one is just like my mum, and 3 lovely grandchildren, but it all hinges on that man who threw my mum into the shelter, but for him none of us would be here.

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