大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Deena Campbell from CSV Action Desk on behalf of Patricia Mcgowan and has been added to the site with her permission. Ms Mcgowan fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

When working in the drawing office at BSA I met up with another draughtsman called Bob Price. He was very good looking and used to come over to my board to have a chat. He asked me out and we started to become close friends. At this time he was 19 years old and I was 18. The day we met was October 1st 1940. Our romance was progressing and I had a letter from him every day. Because of the war situation Bob had to join the fire fighting service which was stationed at the BSA itself. His task was pretty gruesome in that he had to stay on the roof of the factory most nights and when there was a raid and bombs had been dropped on the building it was his duty to find the victims and pull them out of the rubble.

He told me that one time he heard this faint cry for help amid the smoke and dust of bricks and mortar. He saw a hand poking out of a pile of bricks. People were working on nights shifts during the war years at such factories as the BSA. Bob went to this victim and started to pull the hand鈥is stomach turned over, as the hand and arm came away from the body. He gathered his wits about him and anxiously, with the help of his mates pulled all the bricks and rubble away to find a young girl about 18 years old. She was bleeding profusely from the wound where her arm had been torn off and all she could utter was 鈥� 鈥淧lease could someone give me a cigarette and I shall be alright,鈥� later on Bob found out that her name was Mary and that thankfully she had recovered after such a terrible ordeal.

He didn鈥檛 tell me much more than that, other than often there would be many other happenings like that, which sometimes gave him nightmares.

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