大象传媒

My name is Isabel Crockford. I was born in 1924 and lived in a town in Northern Ireland, Newtownards, which is about ten miles from Belfast.

I worked in Belfast during the war in Short & Harlands, which manufactured Sterling Bombers and Sunderland Flying Boats. I travelled backwards and forwards every day to the office and after a very heavy raid on Belfast I got the bus as normal from home and found, when we got to within a mile or so from the city, that we could go no farther. So nothing daunted, away I go, on foot, and after having traversed the said mile, find that it was barricaded and we could not get through because of the damage.

I was by myself, and it was very, very quiet and I didn鈥檛 quite know what to do. I thought the best thing was to make my way back to where I would normally have caught the bus home.

I was walking up the Albert Bridge Road in Belfast, and going up there wasn鈥檛 anybody about. I was really quite frightened in a way. As I came up the road, I鈥檇 walked quite a long way, and I found then that there was a barricade round something by Walmersbury Avenue. I was quite frightened and wondered what I was going to do. Suddenly I saw a warden coming towards me. He had a tin hat on and his face was very black. I didn鈥檛 know who he was.

When he got up to me he said 鈥淚sobel. Where are you going?鈥� He turned out to be a young man from my own street in Newtownards.

I was more than relieved. It was just wonderful.

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