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This story was submitted to the people's war site by a volunteer from covwarkcsvactiondesk on behalf of Margaret Bagley and has been added to the site with her permission Margaret Bagley fully understands the site's terms and conditions
My War
By
Margaret Bagley (Nee Berry)

I was 9 years of age when the war broke out, living in Coventry. My father worked for the Rover Motor Company, as a driver, when the air raids started to get bad, the company asked him if he was prepared to take some of the staff to Pailton every night to large house, away from the bombing, he was allowed to take his own family with him. So every night when he finished work, he would have his tea, then my mother, elder brother and me, would get into the van, with our blankets go and pick up other families to go to this big house where we would sleep as best as we could on the floor. We would drive back to Coventry next morning taking the other people to their homes and going to our house last, my dad would have his breakfast and then go to work.
Where we lived in Cromwell Street, it was not far from the big ordinance works, which was a prime target for the German bombers. One morning when we arrived back from Pailton we found that our house had been badly damaged by a high explosive bomb which had missed its target of the ordinance works and had landed at the top of our street. Our house had all the windows blown in and the broken glass had got mixed up with the food in the pantry, the bread and the butter had glass mixed in with it so it all had to be thrown away, there was no gas electricity or water, some times if we wanted water we would have to walk to the Co-op dairy in Swan Lane and stand in the queue with your bucket. We all had coal fires in those days so we could do our cooking and boil our water on them.
Most mornings after a raid I would walk to Bellgreen to see if my Grandma and Granddad Simpson were all right, Luckily both of them survived the war.
Later on in the war my father changed his job and went to work for the London Laundry, which included a house for us to live in, also my mother worked for the laundry in the canteen. At night instead of going to bed we would go straight to the shelter which had been provided for the tenants of their houses.
My father joined the AFS that was based at the London Laundry, one night he went on duty and we did not see him for three days or nights. Their headquarters had received a direct hit by a high explosive bomb, all the people in there had been killed, they found a helmet and gas mask with the initials S.B which was my dads initials, but it turned out to be a man named Sid Baxter, who had been killed. In the Three Horse Shoes they were getting ready to have a collection for him to buy a wreath. My brother Dennis was also a member of the AFS as a messenger. Later on in the war he served in the 7th Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and went to the Sudan.
Another memory that comes to mind, is when the American soldiers came from there camp at Stoneleigh to the laundry to do their washing.

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