大象传媒

Thursday, 14th November 1940 began as usual, I went off to work, my mother about the house and shopping, my father at home from work due to illness. we had all been up during the previous night due to the air-raid sirens sounding, giving us warning of a possible attack. Never the less, we were all up and about and were on time for work the next day.
I with my parents lived in a house in a cul-de-sac with allotments at the end with access to a small weaving factory. In these allotments, a large concrete air-raid shelter was built for the workers in the daytime & for the street residents at night.
When the sirens sounded about 7pm that night, we went to the shelter not knowing that we were to experience, or should I say suffer, a night of continual bombing by German bombers. The moon was full, The Hunter's Moon, and it was as light as day. The bombs whistled as they fell, a most unpleasant experience. These were incendary (fire) bombs which fell in clusters. Some of the bombs set fire to my home and also, to the house opposite, destroying them completely.
The all clear siren sounded at 8am and gradually we made our way along the street only to find that my parents & I had no home to go to, nor had the people opposite. The heat was so intense that we had to walk quickly passed in the middle of the road.
All we possessed were the clothes we had on. we went to a neighbours house and stayed there for some time.
On the Friday, we went to Nuneaton to stay with my mother's brother & got some clothes and necessities. It was a week before my 21st birthday.
My mother was fortunate to meet someone who wanted to let her house, she wanted to get away from Coventry, so we took this accommodation, not far from where we had originally lived and steyed there for 4 years. In December 1941, my father died so just Mother & I carried on until we found a house to rent in 1944.
The home we lost was a nice home which would have served my parents well for many years to come. No mod cons but warmth, some treasured possessions, photographs, never to be replaced, books, school and Sunday school prizes.
It was war, we had to take it all in our stride, which we did and made a life again with no such thing as councelling as is so prevalent today.
Suffer, yes, we did suffer as did hundreds of thousands of people throughout Great Britain during air raids, but we were not beaten.

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