大象传媒

The day that the war was started I seem to remember that it was a lovely sunny day, my father and I cycled to one of our local beauty spots to pick some blackberries. These were to be stored for the winter made into blackberry vinegar to sooth sore throats in the winter and to put on our Yorkshire Puddings on Sunday Lunchtime. We were almost home when a friend of my father shouted to tell us that we were at war. My father was a miner from the age of 14 until he retired aged 66.

I was only twelve and I thought that we would be bombed right away. Needless to say that we were not attacked that day that came later.

We started the new school year with great excitement. We were soon issued with gas masks and then my nightmare started. I was terrified of those masks as I couldn鈥檛 seem to breathe properly in them, I was not alone and when we were told that there would be practice on a certain day we wimps would try all sorts of excuses to miss having to wear them.

We were allocated our shelter places for if there was an air-raid during school day.
Some of us went under the stage in the gymnasium. The boys went out into trenches dug out in the playing field. It was great when we had a run through because it meant that we missed some of our lessons.

At home when the sirens went we had to go under the stairs as we were not given Anderson Shelters where we lived. Our next door neighbours were quite old and very frightened so they came to us which made the pantry a bit over-crowded; especially as the poor old gentleman had a wooden leg so he was last into the pantry, wooden leg sticking out!

One night, one of the German aircraft returning from a bombing raid in the north dropped his last stick of bombs on Coalville. It straddled London Road and blew the side out on one of the houses near to the petrol station. We all went to look the next morning as I lived in one of the streets off London Road. Another night a large bomb was dropped in the centre of the town behind the Picture House. I never knew if it was unexploded or not, but I paid my sixpence to go and see it and I touched it!! I seem to remember that a Mosquito Plane crashed in a field at the back of the Fox and Goose Hotel.

We had to rely on the radio and newspapers and very old newsreels at the cinema to find out how the war was progressing. Quite a lot of our local boys were killed and missing during the Battle of Britain. Then joy of joys the war was over and the celebrations could begin with street parties and parades.

I was then in my late teens and met a young soldier from Nottingham. We were married when he was demobbed and we were both 21. We will have been married 58 years on 20th December 2005. We have one son and three grown up grandchildren and we are proud of them all!

This story was submitted to the 鈥淧eoples War Site by Rod Aldwinckle of the CSV Action Desk on behalf of Mrs J. Gordon (Nee Scott) and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the terms and conditions of the site

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.