大象传媒

I was 4-5yrs old, we lived at 86, Breinton Road and invariably I would go to the bus stop with my brother and sister each day. It was outside Langford House which was full of American GIs doing administation. In the mornings they used to open the windows, there were two big windows at the front,one was a bay window. One guy would pick me up and pull me in though the bay window and sit me on the window sill. They would have these juicy packets of biscuits all wrapped in cellophane and give them to me. Other times they had fruit, apples, bananas, oranges. This just wasn't available. I hadn't seen a banana before and so I tried to eat it with the skin on. They told me I didn't have to do that and showed me how to eat it. I went virtually every day in hope of an apple, an orange or a banana. Nothing like that was available except apples if you went scrumping up at the doctor's house up towards Breinton Springs. We used to go under the hedge and srump apples. I also remember my Dad in the army, he did six years in the Desert Rats. I remember him coming home, waiting for the army lorry to turn up in the street. My mum, myself, my brother and sister would be waiting, looking over the hedge, waiting for him to come home. I remember once he brought a big bar of chocolate, which we never had. Next door lived the Sleades, their Dad didn't turn up so I broke the bar of chocolate in half and handed it over the privet hedge to them. I remember that.

I remember the story of Rotherwas being bombed. My mother worked there and my grandmother worked there in the First World War. The story goes, and I heard this many times, that a german bomber was lost, looking for his way back. He saw the Midland Red buses at eight o' clock going to the factory.The girls wore green wrap around overalls and there were lines of bus shelters, in rows. Everyone went on the buses and they reckon he saw them and the tops of the red buses. He must have realised something was there and bombed the factory. They say he was reportedly shot down over Goucestershire. He knew there was something there with so many bustops because everything else was camouflaged.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by J Doran of the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Peter Davies and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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