大象传媒

I was born in Coventry in 1934. I have two brothers who were aged 2 and 3 at the time.

My father worked at the Daimler Works near to where we lived in Dorset Road.

Mum, my brothers and me were evacuated from Coventry to Leamington on 5 September 1939 (my picture was in the Midland Daily Telegraph 5 September with my two brothers. I am holding my teddy bear, which I still have). There are some other little children in the picture who I often wonder what became of them.

We returned to Coventry a few weeks later as it seemed quiet, apart from a barrage balloon coming down in a garden nearby.

14 November 1940 was a night I shall never forget even at that young age.

The sirens went. Suddenly there were hundreds of planes droning overhead; the sky lit up to a bright orange. I was so frightened - bangings and crashings and the howling of planes. Mum and dad, me and my two little brothers hid under the stairs, gas masks by our side - it was so hot but we daren't move and stopped in there all night. It never seemed to end.

Mum and dad used to repeat the story of a heavy object bumping down the stairs while we were in the cupboard and being petrified that it was a time bomb waiting to explode, only to find in the morning that it was a chamber pot that had been left at the top of the stairs.

In the morning, after the "all clear" sirens, dad gingerly opened the cupboard door and we were met with choking thick dust and fumes. Our roof had gone and everything was in chaos. A lot of friends and neighbours we knew had been killed. Mum told us a neighbour had an unexploded incendiary bomb in her coal shed.

Everywhere was destruction, and as we walked mum tried to turn my head to hide me from the bodies that were lying about.

All public utilities were down, so communication with Coventry was lost. My aunt tried to find us by hiring a taxi from Derby but was not allowed into Coventry.

After walking a long way through the disaster we eventually found some transport which took us to my dad's parents in Derby.

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