大象传媒

My family and I had survived for the first two years of the war quite better than many other civilians. I lived with my mother and father together with my baby brother who was a year old in 1941.The house had been damaged three or four times through enemy bombing. On one occasion I was in my bedroom asleep when there was a raid and the siren was late in going off, I woke up with half the ceiling on tope of me, I was not hurt, but very quickly joined my parents on the stairs to get down to the shelter. It was about that time when one morning after quite a heavy raid my mother asked me to go down to my Grandparent's old house. The house had been left to my mother and her brother, and they had decided to let it out for the duration of the war. I was not very pleased at having to walk over a mile into Whitley Bay, but I remember thinking that I may be able to find some shrapnel on the way, which I used to save, most of the young boys used to save different items including fins from Incendiary Bombs. So I set off and met someone who told me that the church at the start of Whitley Road had been hit by a land mine, when I reached the church I saw some people pulling a cart with furniture on, whom I recognized as my mothers tenants. I then went up to the older man and told him that my mother had sent me for the rent. I can not be exact as to what he said, but something like this "you must be joking I am not paying rent for half a house" I then went back to the house and told my mother, that the house had been badly damaged by the land mine that hit the church. She was not happy with no rent and only half a house.

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