大象传媒

I was 6yrs and 9 months old when World War II was declared. One of my earliest memories is of my dad and a friend digging a huge hole in the garden for the steel Anderson shelter - which looked like a tunnel until both ends were in place.It was then covered in turf. My father fitted wooden bunks for my older brothers Les and Fred, and me and my little sister Irene, to sleep in during the raids. Of course, the nights were black, not a chink of light was allowed .... and going to the toilet after dark was a real problem !

We lived in the kitchen most of the time and go outside if the light was switched off. To get back in you had to knock and wait to be let in - whatever the weather.

My father and mother (Olive) made a frame that fitted against the window, which was placed there before dusk each night. We had just the central ceiling light at the house in Tallants Road, Courthouse Green, and my father ran a brass contact from this to above the door and another wire back to the light !

In the November 1941 Blitz my uncle Frank Wright was killed in his house in Moorfield, Stoke Aldermoor. Just before the bomb dropped he'd sent his son (my cousin Frank) to his auntie who lived next door and thankfully they survived. The rest of the family had been evacuated. Courthouse Green was close to lots of targets for the German bombers with Morris Motor Engines and Alfred Herbert Tools either side of the Stoney Stanton and Bell Green Road, plus the canal and railway between them both.

The houses on Bell Green Road constructed Anderson Shelters at teh bottom of their respective gardens, leaving a gap of a few yards between them. I looked at them one day after an air raid to see a bomb crater between them which crushed whoever was inside.

One night my father called us out of the shelter (he was an ARP). He said that there was an unexploded stick of bombs in the road, and had to leave. We quickly followed him down Johnson Road and into Armfield Street to a large communal underground shelter opposite the 'Golden Fleece' public house. After seeing us settled my father left us. A couple of minutes later a terrific thud hit the shelter. My father returned, face and hands covered with blood. He had just arrived at the top of the shelter steps when the blast hurled him back down. He left us again after my cousin cleaned him up. Days later we found there was a bomb crater in the field behind Armfield Street.

We used to cycle inside -' calling it the wall of death'. The trick was to pedal hard enough so as not to slide into the water at the bottom. My school was Edgewick, and one day after a night's raid I walked along Cross Road, and passed a fish and chip shop which was close to school. It had been bombed, the front was a heap of rubble but I smiled when I saw the Bombed chip fryer which had a tiled surround, because on the edge of each tile was a Swastika.

My youngest sister was born in 1941 and she was issued with the strangest respirator which made her scream when my mother fitted it over her head. My own gas mask was dented badly because when I ran about it would jump out of the box held by string over my shoulder. If anyone arrived at school without their gas mark they were always sent home for it.

We always had the Daily Mirror at home, and, apart from enjoying the cartoon strip of Garth and Jane with her dog Fritz, I can still remember a cartoon of a person sitting on a tortoise plodding towards a signpost with the words 'Victory on it, but pointing further into th4e distance.

My brother Fred and I would make model aeroplances, carving the parts from wood with a penknife. We often walked to Foreys neat the General Wolfe pub for glass paper to smooth our carvings, and then to Swifts for glue, paint and aircraft marking transfers.

One day, in my garden when I was about 10 or 11, I watched an Avro Anson twin-engined aircraft hit a barrage balloon cable and spiral down, then heard a thud. It crashed in allotments at Henly Mill. I ran to Sullivan Road and stood looking across the River Sone with many other people. Sadly the air crew died.

One Christmas morning I was awake early and found, in a pillow case ( a stocking wasn't big enough) some sweets, and apple and an orange. Also there was a tin aeroplane with a wingspan of 10". It had a wind up motor for the wheels, an upper gun which fired sparks, and also red and green wing lights. It was great !

I missed the excitement of D Day. I went into Whitley Hospital on 5th June with Diptheria. My brother Fred came in too as a germ carrier on the 7th. I went home after a month.

Later that year we moved house to Freeman Street, living between 2 good friends, Ron Moorcroft and Peter Cave.

In the winter of 1946 there was a coal shortage. Ron, Pete and I, for a number of weeks, cycled every morning at 06.45am to Foleshill gas works, and joined a long queue waiting to allowed in. We carried a sack each. Eventually once inside our sacks were filled with coke. We tied the sacks tightly, eased them through the bike frame and pushed our bikes home....... then went to school.

The Rubait of Omar Khyam - the moving finger writes and having written moves on ....

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