大象传媒

I remember as a young child the bombing raids over Liverpool. On one occasion my mum had bathed all three of us ready for bed when a raid started. Because we lived in country village and she had three small children, she used to put us under the stairs until the raid was over, if she did not have the time to get to the air raid shelter in the next village which was about three quarters of a mile away. Suddenly, there was a terrific bang and all the windows and doors in our house were blown out. We were trapped under the stairs for many hours before we were found and dug out. I always remember my Mum being very upset that having bathed the three of us we were now as black as coal from all the soot!! Of course for a while the house was not fit to be lived in so we went and stayed with my Nan (further away at another village)for a while which at the time was quite an adventure, as we had to share beds and rooms, and of course had a much longer walk to school (no cars or buses in those days)which took us hours because we used to play on the way there and back. Because of where we lived, we heard more than experienced any bombing so this event was unusual in our area. We had evacuees staying in the area near us but of course being so young we didn't really understand the seriousness of what was going on, but I know we enjoyed our time as we were at school part-time, my two brothers and myself, were all in the same class, in one large classroom, same teacher but just split into groups. My auntie lived in a house whose garden came to the play area so she would be there every play time with snacks for us. Quite a number of my relatives served in the war, my Father, uncles and my aunt was a driver in the ATS and had her back broken when her vehicle was hit.

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