大象传媒

Once, I went with some friends to Yorkshire Fisheries in Fisherton Street; fish and chips were not rationed but you all had to cram into the shop as queueing outside in the street was not allowed. Afterwards we set off home; all was quiet. When we got to the railway bridge a policeman stopped us and told us to get home as quickly as possible as a raid was imminent. We just hadn`t heard the siren. When we got off our bus and walked down Skew Bridge Road we could see the German planes by the light of the full moon and the searchlights. Just as I went indoors to no. 38 about seven bombs were dropped. They fell in the fields above Netherhampton, just about where the new livestock market is now. We were never allowed to get close to the craters; they were fenced off and then filled in.
From Skew Bridge from time to time you could see Southampton burning; the sky was all red.
Another time I remember I was selling draw tickets in Gramshaw Road when they strafed the engine sheds - when the bomb went off I went and hid under the stairs.
One overcast night my friends and I were all in our respective gardens and we saw a plane come over and the bombs dropping. That time they fell in Moberly Road.
Then there was the bomb which fell in the allotments in the area where Hedley Davis Court is now. I had been on the top deck of a bus in town when the fighter planes came over - you could see them blazing. Then, when I got home, there was a lot excitement: the bomb had bounced on the rail, gone through a wall and ended up in the allotments where Headly Davis Court is now. Shrapnel had hit the water tank and there was water everywhere. The canteen for the men who worked in the engine sheds survived. There were Italian POWs working there; they used to fry chips in butter! the great mystery was where the butter came from.
My father, like so many men who lived in St. Andrew`s Road, was an engine driver. He hated night runs to London because he couldn`t see enough to detect any damaged rails. Often he would be diverted all round London if track had been destroyed.

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