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This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from 大象传媒 Radio Suffolk on behalf of Robina Haliday and has been added to this site with her permission. Mrs. Haliday fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conciditons.

I was four years old when the war began and my sister was eleven. We lived on The Green at Seaton Carew on the north east coast. We had German bombers coming over from the North Sea most nights because they were after the steel works and ship building yards. They erected a siren on the corner of The Green and we were quick to jump into our siren suits the minute it started to wail, a noise that still gives me the creeps! The first time we heard it we were not prepared and my mother told Sheila to get as far into the fireplace as she could because she said that the fireplace was always left standing when a house had been bombed. My mother lay with me on the settee with a blanket covering us! When a bomb dropped very near our house all the windows blew in and we were covered with glass and I peeped out and saw Sheila black from head to foot with soot.

The next day we got a Morrison shelter which was a big iron table with mesh sides. It took up most our lounge and we slept in it every night until a family nearby had their basement reinforced to provide a good shelter for any friends who wanted to use it and we all ran to it the minute we heard the siren. We would all sit there having cups of tea and listening to the drone of the aeroplanes and the big guns.

After a while Sheila and I were evacuated to a lovely little village called Carlton Husthwaite near Thirsk in Yorkshire where we spent a very happy time.

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