大象传媒

This story was put on the People's war site by Louise Angell of the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Radio Derby, on behalf of Arthur Liddell. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

During the war I would be about 10 years old and in a children's home. There was about 16 children from Sheffield who'd been gathered from the city and taken out to this country place. We were looked after by one 'foster parent', a single girl of about 22 and she had this responsibility. We all used to come down when the sirens went and get under the big dining room table, on mattresses, and stay there in the hope nothing would happen. It was very scary because on the nights of the Blitz we could see all the bombs in Sheffield being dropped. The first bombs were dropped next door to the home. They must have been stray bombs and they hit the water supply feeding water to Sheffield. That was the first sense of fear that we had but as we were kiddies we didn't sense it too much. It's still something that's vivid in my mind. To look through the bedroom window and see the city ablaze with colour, burning. That's one of the serious and frightening things I shall always remember.

When the war ended I had gone out to work in Bakewell and I went back home to Sheffield. We had the celebrations on the street. We had bonfires so these fires were glowing on the street just as they had when Hitler dropped the bombs and burned our houses.

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