大象传媒

May 12th 2005 - 60th Anniversary of VE Day

We are being asked to send in our wartime stories. Mine is very ordinary but here goes.

My name is Pamela Williams nee Harrison born 25.12.1928. At the outbreak of War I was ten years old, my sister twenty, my mother and father about 45. My father had a bad stroke at age 42 and although he eventually returned to his job as universal grinder at the Humber factory he was quite disabled and walked with a very bad limp.

Sept 1939. War is announced. Straightaway folk are struggling to find means to black out. First day and sirens sounding 鈥� can it be practice? 鈥�
We can hear gun fire! Food and clothes rationing commences.

I鈥檓 at All Saints School, Vecuarey Street 鈥� an offer to evacuate to Polesworth 鈥� many go.

One of the most frightening things I can ever remember is being bombed. It seemed to go on night after night. My sister and I sheltered with our mother under the stairs. It was even worse for her. She was deaf and could only feel the house shake. She didn鈥檛 know what was going on. There was the drone of heavy bombers overhead. A second after, you knew you would get the nearest bombs. I screamed as they hit all around us. My dad, usually at the Hand & Heart pub in Gosford Street would dodge from shelter to shelter to get home. He was in their cellar the night of the Nov 14th blitz.

One morning in particular I remember after a very bad night. Picking my way through to Cheylesmore School from where I lived in Irving Road a whole row of houses in Charterhouse Road were down on both sides struck, we heard, by land mines and torpedoes.

After a while I changed schools, going to Binley School. It may have been safer on the outskirts. I wasn鈥檛 there for long. My mother鈥檚 family, who lived in Oxford, fetched me to stay with them at Headington giving up their own privacy to put up so many evacuees including two boys aged about 15 from St Clement Danes School, Shepherd鈥檚 Bush, London. One, Dicky Melbourne, was a lovely lad who went on to be a pilot. Oxford was full of evacuees needing school places. It was a long time before we had a classroom. Needless to say I lost a lot of schooling.

At the beginning of the war my sister was engaged to be married to Norman Davies. He was quickly called up so the wedding was brought forward. As she was not quite 21 they had to have permission from our father. Norman was in the 8th army all the wartime, mostly in the Middle East. One time we saw him on the News at the cinema 鈥� the lads receiving post from home 鈥� and my sister went to see this many times.

During the November blitz my mother was in her mother鈥檚 neighbours Anderson shelter in Grantham Street. A truly terrible night. Next day all communications were down. A great worry but mother鈥檚 eldest brother Sam Ives found them and brought them in his car to Oxford where we were reunited. They had nothing and could only stay a couple of days since he had to get back to work. My grandmother Ives stayed and shared a bedroom with Gwen and I.

Mum and Dad managed to rent an upstairs room at a house in William Iliefe Street, Hinckley, travelling into Coventry each day, mum going to our old home to make dad鈥檚 meal. Difficult for a couple with disabilities and not really enough cash for extra accommodation. After one bad night buses could not get through to the city centre. Mum was dropped off near Foleshill. She picked her way to Irving Road through the burning rubble not able to hear whether there was an alert on. My dad managed to get her on the works bus to go back to Hinckley. Very stressful. At this time my mother developed a duodenal ulcer to add to the problems.

At the age of 14 I came back to our home in Coventry to start work at Liggens in Vernon Street making high-class ladies鈥� lingerie. It was repaired after being bombed and was in the top shops of terraced houses in Brook Street. Previously my sister worked there. When it was damaged in the bombing someone climbed up the high narrow rickety stairs to throw out the girls鈥� belongings. I went with my sister. We caught her apron as it was thrown out. Eventually a new Liggens was rebuilt in the next street.

Towards the end of the war my sister was expecting a baby, Carole Anne Davies, so she no longer had to be directed to war-work as she had previously. You could do war work or go into the Forces.

Thinking of these things has made me feel even more sure about seeing my mother鈥檚 youngest sister on a flying visit to Burrow Close, Oxford in WAFF uniform (looking really lovely) . She was married and her name was Mavis Emery.

I should add that we had great times at Oxford. On Sundays we all went to a farm, fishing and swimming in the river at Eynsham using the back of my uncle鈥檚 lorry, which was covered over. You were only allowed so much petrol for work so if we were stopped my uncle joked he would say there were 鈥減igs in the back鈥� which would have been okay for the war effort.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.