大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by CSV Storygatherer Robin.D.Bailey on behalf of the author Sally Hall. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

I was a little girl of 5 walking to my school in Ladysmith Road from Homefield Road, carrying my gas mask on my back. We always had a grown up with us.

We had drill that if the Siren went we had to evacuate the school in groups of 5 to 6 children and go into houses along the road and into the household shelters, one was called Morrison and the other Anderson. The Morrison was in the house, sometimes under the dining room table and made of strong wire, oblong. The Anderson was dug down into the garden with a roof of corrugated iron. When the 鈥淎ll Clear鈥� went we returned to school.

In the mornings we had to go into the Hall to get our little mats, then curl up and try to get some sleep.

We always had very restless nights and had to wear to bed a Siren Suit, as we were ready to jump out of bed and go to our shelter in the house; Our鈥檚 was down in the basement as it had a way out into the back garden. My Dad had built a shelter up in an old stable right at the top of the garden. He had dug down, but it always filled up with water, so it could not be used.

The night of the Exeter Blitz was a terrible night, bombs dropping all around us. My late Brother, John, was a Messenger Boy going from post to post. My Dad was in the Homeguard. Dad was on duty up and down our area and had just spoken to his friend just outside our house before
coming in to see if my two sisters and Mum were O.K. When with a dreadful bang, a shell had entered the house up on the roof and came down through the rooms, bringing down the ceilings and taking one candle stick off the piano and the hood off our dolls pram. It lodged in the wall just a few feet from where we were in the basement. The windows and doors had already blown in, with everything on the shelves, tin food etc. and the potty that Mum had for us. We could see the Convent just behind our garden was on fire. Dad went out the front and there was his friend, dead.

My Aunt, my Mum鈥檚 sister was driving a fire engine, they had been sent down from Weymouth. Our house was just off the main road so she parked up and came to see if we were still there, then carried on into Exeter, it didn鈥檛 take 5 minutes.

We had a cat who was expecting kittens and my Dad put her in the airing cupboard, when we all came up in the morning, there she was purring away with her kittens; We named one Blitzy.

Every night after that, Mum and Dad put us in the car and we went up to the woods overlooking Exeter, everyone had the same idea. We could see Exeter burning and hear the sound of Jerry 'planes coming over, quite a distinct sound of droning ( start & stop); They used to come very
low, you knew it was a German (Jerry) 'plane.

We spent weeks, taking it in turns to sleep in the car, it was very dark and it was the first time I heard an owl, which made us all jump as it was in the tree above us.

My Brother was all right, he had many a miss, but always came home. He did a wonderful job, he was only 15 years old, most of the roads in town were gone and he had to cycle around dead people and bomb craters.

We still went to school and we all carried on as well we could.

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