大象传媒

The day was 26th November 1940. I had been staying in Park Royal London with my futire husband Doug who was on leave from the Army, with his parents. I was returning to Southampton and he was returning to Dunfermline (Scotland) where he was stationed.
Arriving in Southampton mid-afternoon, I caught a tram to the "Floating Bridge" to cross the River Itchen to Woolston, where I lived with my parents and sister and brother. We had only lived in Woolston since 1938 as my father, who was employed by the Air Ministry (A.I.D.), had been posted to the Supermarine Factory in Woolston to inspect the Spitfire.
As I walked from the Floating Bridge towards home, up Obelisk Road, I saw the road had been cordoned off, and the Air Raid Wardens were stopping people from turning into Longmore Avenue where I lived. The Manager of Lankester and Crooks Stores came out to warn me that our house had been bombed: apparently a lone plane had jettisoned three bombs, one landed in our front garden, one on the back of Lankester and Crook's Stores, and the third on Phillips shop further up Obelisk Road. The miracle of this was, my mother had been sitting knitting in the front room half an hour before this happened, when she remembered I would be home by tea-time, so went out to buy some cakes for tea. As she reached the Library (about ten minutes walk) the siren went and the Warden pushed her into the Shelter under the Library. The "All Clear" went very quickly, and she bought her cakes, walking back home, blissfully unaware of what had happened. Had she not gone out for that half hour I I doubt she would have lived to see her 83rd birthday. We couldn't enter the House, so friends kindly put us up until my parents found another house in Bitterne.
Unbeknown to us Doug had sent me a telegram saying he had arrived safely in Scotland, only to have the telegram returned with a message on the envelope saying "House demolished unable to find occupamts." Of course he was distraught and his Officer phoned Southampton Police Station, who were able to confirm that the family was OK. We must have been the first House to be bombed at that time.
We moved to Bitterne a few weeks later, but had only been in it six weeks when we were bombed again, this time during the big Blitz on Southampton on the night of November 23rd: the next day 24th November was my 21st birthday which was spent wandering about making plans of what to do. We cycled out to Bishop's Waltham that night where a kind lady let us have shelter in her sitting room for the night.
Doug and I were to be married in Bitterne Church on Boxing Day: we'd had the banns called, but the family was split up. I went to Wales where Doug's parents had moved back only six weeks before and we just had three weeks to have the banns called in St Catherine's Church in Gorseinon (near Swansea) and were married on Boxing Day 1940.
My sister and brother evacuated to Barrow-in-Furness.
My Father to Liverpool as Supermarine Factory had by this time been demolished in a daylight raid.

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