大象传媒

It is October 1941. I am a scared ten year old, living in Farnworth, Widnes. The nightly air raids by German bombers returning from targeting nearby Liverpool forced my mother and I to spend time with the neighbours during raids since dad was out on Air Raid precaution duty.
A mobile anti-aircraft gun would often park at the end of our road, and blast away. The ear shattering noise was indistinguishable from the sound of an exploding bomb so one can imagine the state of our jangling nerves.
On one such night I nearly jumped out of my youthful skin on hearing the tell-tale high pitched whistling noise of a German bomb coming my way, with my name on it! I immediately dived under the table at speed and awaited my impending doom. Then NOTHING!! - Then laughter !!
The explanation?
Mrs Stokes our neighbour had a whistling kettle which I had never heard of, let alone actually heard whistling. It was only time for another cuppa.
The next threat came a few days later delivering it's deadly load silently.
On the 20th October a parachute mine floated down, crashing through the roof, bedroom, finally resting on the ground floor of a house in nearby Windermere Avenue. A delayed action device waited a few moments before exploding 500kg of hemtex. The luckless occupants must have seen the mine descending. Nine people were killed, many more injured. Mum and I were staying with the family next door to the stricken house. The time delay allowed my mother to push me behind a settee and shield me as the house caved on on top of us. Our host family were injured, but mum and I escaped injury.
Paradoxically, had I remained at home in bed, some several hundreds from the centre of the explosion I would have been severely damaged since the tangled chunk of leaded lights and jagged glass had ripped my pillow to shreds.

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