大象传媒

鈥淭his story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by volunteer Anita Howard from Essex Action Desk CSV on behalf of Eileen Hance and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.鈥�

I lived in Chelmsford Essex. I had five brothers, four were in the army and the fifth, who was medically unfit, worked at the Marconi factory all through the war.
After the Marconi New Street factory had taken two direct hits on May 8th 1941 they were clearing up the mess when he was handed an object and told to take it up to Galleywood Racecourse to the old main stand. The object turned out to be a severed leg of one of the bomb victims. Bodies were all taken to the racecourse.

I worked as a volunteer in the Y.M.C.A. canteen, Victoria Road, Chelmsford. It was used by many service men. I stayed nearby with my sister-in-law in Highfield Road. One night I heard dreadful bombing and I was worried about my parents who lived near Marconi鈥檚 and Hoffmanan鈥檚. They weren鈥檛 on the 鈥榩hone so I wanted to make sure they were all right. As I reached the railway station we weren鈥檛 allowed through as part of the station had been hit so I went by way of Broomfield Road. I took off my high heeled shoes and walked barefoot. By Marconi鈥檚 near Glebe Road the area had been badly hit. Fire everywhere and ruined buildings, ambulances, firemen and rescue personell. Eventually I reached my parents home where I found my family safe and unharmed in the shelter.

It was an exciting time for people of my age in their late teens and early twenties. We knew people were being killed and that was very sad.
It was hard with rationing and being bombed out but we felt we were really living. The pressure we were under was so high that we felt we had lived every minute of the day.

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