- Contributed by听
- peter_hayward
- Location of story:听
- Croydon
- Background to story:听
- Civilian
- Article ID:听
- A5250548
- Contributed on:听
- 22 August 2005
My family sat listening to the radio waiting to hear the announcement that the war had started. After the announcement the siren sounded and my mother made me and sister sit in the loo until she thought it was safe. After a while we where let out (thank goodness). With my brother Ken I went to Oval Road School to see the evacuees, but we didn鈥檛 stay long. We bought rhubarb and custard sweats to eat on the way home.
I lived in Corydon all through the war, I was nearly 7 when it started. I watched one of the first air raids on Corydon airport from the garden of our house in Dalmaly Road. The German aircraft flew in a straight line and the bombs that fell from them look like small dots in the sky. it took days for what I had seen to sink in, I just couldn鈥檛 believe it.
Our house took a blast one Saturday evening at about six o鈥檆lock. My mum was in the front room making the bed as we slept down stairs at first. She came out of the front room looking very scared. The force of the blast had broken all the glass in the windows. The bomb had actually landed behind the house opposite where a nurse was helping deliver a baby. There was lots of mess but no one was hurt.
We moved to Elgin Road some time after that. We had a four-story house with a basement and because of this we weren鈥檛 allows a table shelter because it wouldn鈥檛 have been strong enough to take the weight of the house if it was hit. We slept in out bedrooms until the flying bombs started and then we all slept in the basement. My bed was under the dresser. It had curtains round the bottom so I did have some privacy. We were blasted twice while living at this house but luckily we never had to move out.
Once one the way home from school, I was fired at by a Heinkel Bomber. He seemed to be aiming just at me but I don鈥檛 expect he was. I ran as fast as I could all the way home. All my mum had to say was 鈥済ood boy for running home for lunch.鈥
One Friday tea time the gas mains were hit. I remember seeing the flying bombs and the huge flames about 30 foot high. I was going down to get fish and chips for tea because the gas pressure was down they took ages to cook; tea was very late that night!
The end of the war came at an opportune moment for me. It meant I had a day off school when i should have been doing a spelling test.
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