- Contributed byÌý
- CovWarkCSVActionDesk
- People in story:Ìý
- Eva Foster (nee Goodman), Ernest Goodman, Sally Goodman, Herbert Goodman, Amy Goodman, Alma Goodman, Alan Goodman, Amelia Pearson, Betty Ollis, Lucy Gilliam
- Location of story:Ìý
- Coventry
- Article ID:Ìý
- A5086956
- Contributed on:Ìý
- 15 August 2005
‘This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Rick Allden of the CSV ´óÏó´«Ã½ Coventry and Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of Eva Foster and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions’.
In September 1941, I started senior school at South Wigston Intermediate School and Alma started the following year. Betty went to school at Wigston Magna the same year. We went home in April 1944, as bombing had stopped and Alma needed to have her tonsils removed. The lady she was staying with (we called her aunt Lucy) didn’t want to be responsible for the operation. It was actually carried out on the kitchen table of our home.
The people we stayed with were very kind but it was lovely to be at home with our parents. It was a much bigger house and grounds, and, of course, we were growing up and our parents wanted us home. I learned many years later that they were very upset when we first went away and at first couldn’t sleep at night; not only because of the air raids.
Barrage balloons were put up around cities and towns in the hope of preventing planes from flying too low and that if they did they would become entangled. One did fetch a plane down as it flew over Coventry, the plane eventually landing in field in Withybrook, where it exploded with some bombs still on board. Unfortunately, this was very near to where my family had decided to park the lorry after they had decided to go to the countryside after the Coventry Blitz. They weren’t hurt and decided to stay at home in future.
In 1948 a lot of repairs were done to our house, including it being entirely re-roofed. The whole of the front wall was taken down and rebuilt (the house was double fronted) with a large part of a side wall rebuilt and windows replaced. The front wall was blown outwards by the blast of a land mine and didn’t go back completely. This resulted in the joists of the bedroom floors at the front of the house only just resting on the front wall. When you walked across them they would bounce. They were quite dangerous although we didn’t realize for a long time what had happened.
© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.
Recommended story
Story with photo