大象传媒

It was 1944 - I was three and a half years old. We lived in a block of flats built in 1870: not big blocks, just 4 stories high. Our flat was on the first floor. There was a paved yard at the back where people hung out their washing. Some of them still used the old washroom in the corner, with its big "copper". (When I got older I used to love to light the fire under the copper - with or without water in it!)

At the beginning of the war a shelter had been built in a corner of the yard and at first it was well used, (so my mother told me later). Later it was not needed so often but I can remember the adventure of being wakened in the night to the sound of a siren and rushed down to the shelter, which can't have been earlier than 1943. By 1944 raids were more sporadic and people had grown blase about them. Until the Doodlebugs began.

By this time it was common for some people, probably the younger ones, to ignore sirens and just listen for the doodlebugs. If you could hear them then you were safe. If the engine stopped you still had time to rush into the shelter anyway. Of course "us kids" would have been ushered, complaining, into the shelter as soon as the siren went. "You can't be too careful" my mother would say - ignoring the irony that let her stay outside.

I had a love-hate relationship with the shelter. I loved the fact that we were all together, and as an only child I enjoyed being with other children. It was lit with candles and that was exciting too. On the other hand it was damp, dirty, and there were spiders and earwigs!

This day was like many others. My mother was taking her turn to wash the communal staircase; all four floors - I can't see that happening today! It was spring or summer - I remember it being sunny. When the siren went I was taken to the shelter and left in the charge of one or two of the older residents. There was no rush as there might have been earlier in the war. Then we heard it.

The sound of the doodlebug wasn't frightening to me. I had grown used to the sound of aero engines - I quite liked their soporific sound. I firmly believe that one of my earliest memories is of lying in a pram with a bright sun warming me and the sound of merlins passing overhead. But today was going to be different.

It seems that the doodlebug was nearer than usual because residents were actually hurrying into the shelter. I picked up a sense of urgency that I had not felt before. Mr. Scott was standing at the shelter door and I realised that he was shouting my mother's name. The doodlebug engine had stopped!

I joined in the calls for my mother to get into the shelter, though my timy voice was easily drowned, and suddenly she burst through the door at top speed falling on top of me on the bunk. (I was surprised it didn't break!) Mr. Scott slammed the door shut and almost simultaneously there was the loudest bang I'd ever heard. My ears rang!

The doodlebug had dropped two blocks away and demolished half a street of two-up-two-down terrace houses and seriously damaged the church. When I was a little older it was the damage to the church that impressed me most. It was big and solid and dark and permanent, and anything that could do THAT to the church deserved respect. I wasn't aware at three and a half of the human loss of life.

Nobody spoke much in the shelter and we didn't come out until the all clear went. When the door was opened the yard was inches deep in glass and there wasn't a single window left in the whole block of flats. It looked quite pretty as the sun shone on it and I wanted to go out to see it!

Needless to say we children were kept in the shelter until it had been cleared. It took much too long! I decided to make the grown-ups pay for keeping me locked up so I pretended to have been "killed" by the bomb. I lay flat on my back on the floor with my arms and legs stretched out wide and my eyes tight shut. I tried to hold my breath. Nobody took the slightest notice! Except my mother who gave me a smack for getting my clothes dirty. She was very ratty that day!

It wasn't until many years later that I realised how close my mother had come to being cut to pieces by the flying glass. She had been determined to finish washing the stairs and kept on doing it till the last moment. Perhaps that's why she was ratty!

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