大象传媒

At the beginning of the war I was three and my bed was moved from the first floor of our family home to a cupboard under the stairs. Each night my Mother would tell me a bedtime story. One night in 1940 she was half way through a tale about two little pigs hiding in a wood from a wolf and had just arrived at the point where the 'naughty' wolf was pouring paint over the hiding pigs when there was a sound like a whistle and a crunch. A German bomber had dropped a stick of bombs. The first hit a bungalow half a mile away killing the occupants who were in their bedroom. The second hit 100 yards passed our house just outside my prep school causing a large crater and blowing the post box into the hole. A third hit a gas main just under a mile away which blew down a substantial residence. I never did hear the end of the tale which I shall always remember for the wrong reasons. The only consolation was three days off prep school while the windows were being replaced and the crater filled in. If it had been a bomb later in the war no doubt more damage would have been done and if the bomb aimer had pushed his button 5 seconds earlier it would have been a different srory!.

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