大象传媒

My name is Michael,A,Carter. Sadly my wife died on 29th December 2002.I have been endeavoring to put down on paper, as much of her life that she told me about, that I can remember. We were only married for 38 years all but a few days. There is a story about the War, that might be of interest to you, so here it is.
Dorothy, May, Bridgeman, was born in Plymouth on 4th August 1928. Her father was in the Royal Navy, and at the time of this story they lived at Hartley, in Torr Crescent. Her father was in the Paymaster Branch, was sent up to Kyle in Scotland, to open ( or help to )a Navel Camp.
Dorothy & her Mother went to live there in Aaugust 1940 for about six momths. They returned to Plymouth in 1941, just in time for the Blitz, and all the bombing.During the Blitz and for many, many weeks after, they used to go out to the Moors , to sit in the car, at night and watch the bright red sky, which was Plymouth burning.
One day during or just after a bad raid, Dorothy's bus to school, a private school called Gunnerside,in Plymouth, was late due to the detours that it had to make to get by the bombed houses and unexploded bombs, Dorothy and another girl with her, arrived at school and went in to the cloakroom, to change into their soft shoes, (they were not allowed to wear hard shoes as it marked the flooring).They said to each other . "We must be the first ones here today". They went up stairs to their class room, opened the door to go in, and Oh Dear!! No floor,just a gaping hole where the floor should have been. They went down stairs and put their shoes on again,and went out side, where they saw a warden or a policeman, and he said. "Dont go in there ,There is an unexploded bomb in there. How did you get passed the cordon? It seemed that some one had not done his job properly.
During the times of the air raids . One day Dorothy, was on her way home, she was walking. A German aeroplane, she said it was a Stuker, machined along the road, and she had to run for cover.After they were bombed out, Dorothy and her Mother went to live in Bournemouth, for about eight months in the latter part of 1941. They had been in the shelter or under the stairs, when a huge piece of clay came right through the roof , and landed on mother's bed.Ther are photographs of the houses opposite their house in Torr Crescent, that had a direct hit by a bomb, and they had people killed there. It was some few days or even running into weeks, that a woman's body was left laying on the pavement. The authorities were overwhelmed with bodies. They came round eventuality with a lorry to take her away, some one had covered the body over, but did not cover the smell.
Dorothy said "We had plenty of food in Bournemouth,and I put on weight to eight stone twelve pounds,and grew to five foot three inches. We went back to Pplymouth in 1942, (I was thirteen by now )and food was scarce, some times we could not get our full rations, and I lost weight and went down to six stone". Dorothy & her mother used to go to Tavastock Market to get supplies, they went by bus, as the car was by then laid up until the end of the war.
At the start of the war, Dorothy's Dad was on H.M.S.Furious,and went over to Canada to bring back the first of the Canadians, to help in the war. Later in the war, they had some Canadians in the fire service, to help with the blitz. Dorothy and her Mother were in their front garden, trying to get out a root of an old tree, when a Fire Engine was passing by. It stopped, and a Canadian voice called out "Do you want a hand mother"? And they got down and in a short time had pulled out the root. But that was typical of them.

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