大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Swindon College on behalf of Joy Caswell and has been added to the site with her permission. Joy fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was born in 1931 in Swindon and war broke out in 1939. I remember the morning war was declared, people immediately congregated in the street outside their homes. All the adults seemed so depressed, the children were rather bewildered, not knowing exactly what 鈥渨ar鈥� was.

Just before war was declared, my parents had a shelter built in the garden between us and 2 neighbours. It was made of concrete, built partially underground and could easily hold 7 adults. It was covered over with sand bags which my father had managed to obtain.

In the shelter, my mother always kept a flask of hot tea with some biscuits, a type of picnic for the children. To us the children this was great fun. We also kept clothes and bedclothes in the shelter. When the deafening siren sounded it was a warning to go to the air raid shelter. Our neighbours came as well and there we would stay till the all clear was sounded. Sometimes we slept all night there. We also had a garden shed which we also used as a shelter. Indoors we also created another type of shelter 鈥� a Morrison one. This one had a metal bottom and top, with wired sides and stones to hold the top up. We kept bedclothes in there as well and I very often slept in this instead of in my bed..

One evening I can vividly remember running down the garden, hearing the sirens and what sounded like guns going off. The German planes made an awful loud pounding noise. I so remember the night when Kembrey Street was bombed 鈥� running down the garden with Mum and Dad and my baby brother being carried. The neighbours joined us. It sounded as if these guns were being fired and bombs were being dropped non-stop. The ground shook so badly and one large brick came through the roof of our house. The force of the bomb blast also blew out most of the windows in the back of the house. Kembrey Street was left with a big crater.

At the time Plessey鈥檚 was based in Kembrey Street but the bombs had missed the factory. Some houses had disappeared and a whole family wiped out. The noise of the bombing that evening will remain with me forever.

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