大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Claire White of 大象传媒 Scotland on behalf of Patricia Simeon and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

My family lived at 25 Vauxhall Street, Plymouth. On the 23rd of April 1941 it was my 16th birthday. Thirteen of us lived in the house there: my mother and father, my two sisters, and two nieces. My grandmother, an aunt and uncle and two cousins had also joined us as they had been bombed out of their house.

Plymouth was a target because of the naval dockyards there and raids were frequent. It was around 10pm there was an air raid and it went on for hours. I had just put my niece's feeding bottle on the corner of the table and I heard the whistle of a bomb coming down. I remember nothing more until I came to in the dark - it was pitch black and so quiet. I couldn't move at all. I was completely trapped. Later, I heard footsteps running and I screamed at the top of my voice in the hope that someone would hear me.

I listened hard and could just hear voices. Some time later, some servicemen managed to get to me. How they got me out I just don't know because my legs were completely trapped. They asked me my name and later some army girls with a jeep took me to a big house in Mutley Plain. I don't know why they didn't take me to hospital, but I did hear that the hospitals were full up and there were no ambulances available.

I never saw any member of my family until three days later, when my father came to see me. He had been blown to the other side of the house by the blast. My cousin, Brian Blewitt, was pulled out of the wreckage on the 26th of April, still alive. My father, cousin and I were the only survivors from the thirteen who lived in the house at the time.

I hadn't any clothes except those I stood up in. We had lost everything in the bombing. An aunt took me and my cousin in but she had no room for my father, who for a time had to sleep rough or in the air raid shelter at work, which was not allowed. I had to remain with my aunt for a long time as I couldn't walk for more than a year. Eventually, my father managed to get a place to stay and I moved in with him.

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