大象传媒

I was born 9 March 1935 at 10 shamrock Road, Itchen, Southampton and lived there until 1941. When the war started I was just 4 1/2 years old. Shamrock Road was particularly badly hit as, at one end, there was a small cliff, at the bottom of which was Vickers Supermarine works. when the war started they went over to building Spitfires. The factory was eventually bombed, around 1944 during the night when they were not working nights anymore, there was only a Nightwatchman who escaped uninjured. I recall starting at a nursery school at the Easter previous, it closed when the war started. Next I started Infants School, that lasted all of a couple of weeks, then the class was closed and most children evacuated. I started again when I was 6 years old only for the same thing to happen so I missed a lot of schooling. My father refused to allow me, and my older sister, to be evacuated on the grounds that if one went then we all went together (he meant that in the nicest possible way - I hope) The first big raid was on a Sunday, Mother was preparing the tea and had the table laid, always a big affair for us in those days. The siren sounded and we all dashed for the shelter, when the all clear went Mother went to the house to get us something to eat, all ruined, the food was covered in plaster from the ceiling and glass from the windows. There was not a window left in the house and the front door was at the top of the stairs having been blown off its hinges. At another time I was standing outside the shelter looking up at the planes in the sky, to my small mind there were so many they blotted out the sky. Then the Spitfires? turned up and I saw a ball of fire slowly descending towards the ground a long way off. After that little blobs atarted falling from the planes (bombs) and my father grabbed me by the scruf of my neck and threw me into the shelter. I had a soft landing, father had fitted the shelter out with bunk beds and carpets, also a stove for heating and cooking on, just as well as there was one time when we spent 4 days and nights in the shelter, there was also a thick wooden door. During that time no sooner had the All-clear sounded than the siren went off again. Afterwards there were very few houses left standing in the road and houses at each end blazing away merrily. They had to be left to burn out, the Fire Brigade couldn't reach them as there was an unexploded bomb on the forecourt of Bitterne Fire Station. To make things worse, they could not get across from Southampton as on of the floating bridges had been blown out the water and another badly damaged, at that time the floating bridges were the only way across, to go by road was several miles. I had a little dog which was given to me as a birthday present. He got into the habit of going to the bottom of the stairs each morning at dead on 6.00am. He was so regular that my father stopped setting his alarm clock, as did my grandfather who lived next door. The dog would wake dad up who, in turn, would wake grandfather. One Friday he managed to get off his lead and went off on his own. A lady a few doors away had put out a piece of meat with poison on it as a dog had been digging up her garden. Definitely not mine, he was never allowed to run free unless it was on the local park when somebody was with him, anyhow he found it and ate it. Next morning, Saturday, no alarm call from the dog, he was dead. My father, and grandfather, over slept and only woke when the factory and docks sirens went off at 7.00am. My father woke me to tell me the dog was dead whereupon I broke my heart, so much that both father and grandfather decided to have the morning off to hold a burial service in the back garden. That saved both their lives. Later that morning was a raid on the docks, where both worked, and there was a direct hit on the shelter they would have been in, only a very small number of men came out alive, and most were very badly injured. The shelter was checked for any survivors then sealed for the duration. Virtually the whole of Southampton City Centre was flattened, including a big wine importers who used ancient tunnels beneath the City as a bonded warehouse. They were also sealed for the duration of the war, in fact I cannot recall them ever being opened again though they must have been long ago. As the raids went on our house became uninhabital and so, in 1941, we moved across to the other side of the City to Shirley. One day while I was helping to clear rubble at a house a few doors away, a ARP Warden knocked on the door and told us we had to move out, there was an unexpolded bomb just beyond the hedge at the bottom of the garden. That was enough for my parents and grandparents, we packed up and moved to Northampton where my mother had relations. My last trip through the City enroute to the railway station was unforgetable, there were two trams lieing on their sides, down a side road was another blazing away. The train was delayed leaving because of yet another raid, and was packed solid. The journey to London alone took several hours as the train was repeatedly stopped by raids and we eventually arrived in Northampton around 3.00am next day. It was pitch black, no buses of course, and no taxis so we had to set out to walk about 4 miles to an Aunt's house. I took an instant dislike to the town, which remains to this day, partly due, maybe, to almost falling down a big hole in the pavement that had no guard rails round it. After a couple of months at my Aunt's we were given a council house and qas able to settle down, I started school properly at the age of 7. I must have learnt something in my earlier years as, at 11, I passed the scholarship exam with flying colours and ended up at Northampton Technical High School. Our live in Northampton was not all peace and quiet though. Now and again a German bomber would fly over after getting lost, also I saw a flying bomb one day many miles away, it came down in a field. The one thing that did really scare me was the day an American bomber came over, it was on fire and, as it turned out, all the crew except the pilot had bailed out. The pilot was making a very brave attempt to reach his base. He did not make it and crashed very shortly after I had seen it with a huge explosion, there must have been a bomb still left on board. At the time I was playing at a friends house about half a mile from home, I was so scared that I shut myself away under the stairs and wouldn't come out, eventually my friends mother had to fetch my father to get me out. I had nightmares for weeks after and would not leave the house unless I really had to, I thought it was all starting again. Both my older sister and I have suffered badly with our nerves from that day to this.

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