大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Stoke-on-Trent Libraries on behalf of Denis Sullivan and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

In Aug '39 my mother ,brother and I went to Newbury ,Berks for 2 weeks . Then the whole school went to Hungerford,Berks and I was billeted with the Butchers of Co-operative and stayed there during the phoney war.We came back to London after that. When the real blitz started we went to school as normal and sheltered by night in the Freemason's Hall in Queens St.Father was on the buses. Holborn Tube station was our nightly home for two months and we used to come out in daylight and see fires burning and smell the burning everywhere. I remember running with my brother and mother as shrapnel was falling all around.Our own house often had windows blown out.We never really saw any gruesome sights and found the whole war time to be an experience not to be missed.

In 1943 in the Hit and Run period it was very frightening. We moved to High Wycome area and joined a local school for 3 months and then went back to London.I developed a quick response to emergenies and was able to be immediately alert.The flying bombs were easy to hear and the sudden silence meant we ran for cover in buildings though none fell near us.
V2 bombers were worse as they had no warning but not as frightening as a result.
All my extended family live in the same block of flats and none ever moved out during this time.
We never went short,missed sweets we had an allowance of 3/4lb per month.We enjoyed the mini cigarettes and bought Victory v lozenges to compensate for sweets from the chemists.
in 1943 father died in hospital from an operation and we were 6 months on our own(mother ,brother and I) before mother e-married a neighbour who had a son who was in the navy and was a PE instructor before the war. Stepfather was 10 years older than my mother but was very kind and treated us fairly . He worked on the Daily herald. Denis Sullivan,Stoke-on Trent

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