大象传媒

My brother and I started school during the War and for sometime we could only go for half a day each day. One week it would be mornings, the following week afternoons. Whether this was because we were not allowed to go too far from our homes, or a shortage of teachers, I don't know. While at school we often had air raid drills, when we had to walk as fast as we could from the school building, up the playground, up the steps into the playing field, and into the air raid shelters. These were large concrete buildings buried in the ground with the entrance at one end, and an escape hatch with built-in ladder at the other. Sometimes it would be for real and we would have to sit in the damp musty smelling place until the 'All Clear' sounded. I didn't like that much. I realise now that I found the shelter claustrophobic. Sometimes we would be in the shelter just while aircraft passed overhead on their way to bomb somewhere else, and we would have to stay there until they went back again. Occasionally when this happened, and everything had gone quiet overhead, the teachers would unlock the gate at the back of the playing field and those of us who lived within sight of our homes would be allowed to run home. This included us, and as Mum knew this could happen, she would be waiting for us at the top of our steps. We would then go into our shelter to await the 'All Clear'.

Our air raid shelter was a very basic affair to start with, but as it became clear there would be times when we would have to sleep in it, Dad built a porch over the door, which helped to keep the rain out, and four bunk beds. We tried to stay in our warm comfortable beds indoors as much as possible, especially during the winter, but there would be times when the sirens would go in the middle of dark cold nights and we would have to get up and go to the shelter. On these occasions, Mum and Dad would quickly get up and throw on some warm clothes, then Dad would come to gather me up and we would go as fast as we could out into the cold up the garden path to the shelter. I nearly always woke up when the siren went so I would be waiting for Dad, but my brother hardly ever woke up, so it would take Mum longer to get him up, dressed, and out to the shelter.

One night the siren went and Dad and I had only got to the bottom of the stairs when we heard the unmistakable whistle of falling bombs. Dad yelled up the stairs 鈥淭ake cover,鈥� and he propelled me into the dining room and under the dining room table. There we huddled together, me with my knees under my chin, and my heart thumping so hard I thought it would burst out of my chest. Dad seemed to have wrapped himself right round me. We stayed there for sometime listening to the local gun batteries booming away, as the aircraft circled overhead dropping bombs. The explosions followed by the 鈥榳hoosh鈥� of the blast. This was followed by the sound of falling bits and pieces, some being tiles as they came off the roof. Then I heard a window break. I said to Dad 鈥淪omeone's window has gone鈥�. He held me even tighter, and said 鈥淭hat's no problem, that will soon be fixed鈥�. Eventually the aircraft left and we finished our sprint to the shelter with Mum and my brother close behind.

The next day must have been a school day because it wasn't until much later I discovered the broken window was in my parents' bedroom. Dad was right though - it was soon fixed. It took a bit longer to get the roof tiles replaced. If the local guns had been in action, and the day after wasn't a school day, my brother and I would be up early and out to see if we could find bits of shrapnel. This was a favourite pastime for us and our friends. We each had a small box of some sort and we would try to be the first out in the morning to pick up the biggest bits of metal. Sometimes the pieces would still be warm and we had to be careful we didn't cut ourselves on the jagged edges. One day I came home with some narrow strips of silver stuff. They seemed very strange to me, and Dad said the enemy aircraft had dropped them to confuse our radar system. What I had found was of course tin foil. It didn't have much swap value, so it ended up in the bin.

This story was entered on The People's War website by Stuart Ross on behalf of Dorothy Packer, who fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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