大象传媒

This story has been submitted by Margaret Payne of the Lancashire Home Guard on behalf of Hazel Flavell and has been added to the site with her permission.

As a three year old child, I remember being wakened up 鈥� my Gran used to say, 鈥淐ome on, Hazel, Hitler鈥檚 coming鈥�, and then we had to go to the air-raid shelter. The air-raid shelter was like a big wire cage (possibly made of steel) that you had to enter. There was a bed, flasks of tea and Gran鈥檚 Lancashire Parkin always went with us!

I had lost my mum at childbirth, so my Gran brought me up until I was nine year鈥檚 old. I remember my Gran combing my long hair into plaits ready for school, when she heard a loud whistling sound (she thought it was the milkman as he used to whistle!). The whistling seemed to stop and then my Gran threw me into our air-raid shelter following me in and closed the steel partition.

After the all-clear we soon realized that the street behind ours had been hit by the doodle-bug bombs and had destroyed possibly four streets. My aunt went out later in the day to see what damage had been done, and I remember seeing a massive crater where the houses had once stood. I have vague memories of a lady in a wheelchair sitting outside the only house that was standing, but apparently the blast had killed the lady 鈥� apparently with no mark of injury on her body.

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