大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War website by Janet Taylor with help from Rebekkah Abraham on the behalf of London CSV. The story has been added to the site with the author's permission and she understands the site's terms and conditions."

I was about 6 years old and living with my Grandparents in Watford. In 1944 I remember waking up with the net curtain across my face and the windows blown open. A bobm (possible a V2) had been dropped. The sky was a phosphorous greeny yellow. My grandfather went to help. The next day I went to school with my mother, and I noticed that one of the girls wasn't there. Eventualy it dawned on me why she wasn't there - her house had been hit.

Another memory - being wrapped in an widerdown and taken down to the air raid shelter. We used to sing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' as there was only an air raid when the sky way clear.

During the war there were shelters at my school. I used to go home for lunch, and my father had measured exactly the middle point between my house and the school. He told me that if the air raid siren sounded and I was past the middle point, I was to run for home. If I had not reached the point, I was to run back to school. Of course the one time the siren sounded, I was right at the middle point! I stood there not knowing what to do, and I remember a man on a bicycle going past saying "What are you doin?! Go to the shelter!"

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