大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People's War site by CSV Storygatherer Lucy Thomas - Callington U3A - on behalf of Pauline Husband. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

Mother walked me to school every morning, a journey of about a mile, fetched me at midday to go home for lunch, took me back for the afternoon and fetched me at the close of school. I must have been about six then, but because Mother wasn鈥檛 doing war work and we had a spare room 鈥� albeit a box room 鈥� we were allocated a lodger.

Mr Conway was from London. He worked at the War Office, which had been relocated to Cheltenham. He wore a trilby hat which he pulled down over his eyes, and a belted overcoat.

It was while Mr. Conway was with us that we experienced our worst night of bombing. We had a factory about a mile from us. It was called Martins. They were famous for their work with wood, and in peacetime I believe made specialist furniture for places like the Houses of Parliament. During the war they were making, among other things, parts for the Mosquito fighters which, of course, were made from wood. The factory was heavily camouflaged but it was thought that Martins was the target that night. There were other factories in the area, including the one where my father worked, which was known as the ROTEL. They were on war work making propellers, or props as they were known.

This particular night, the siren had sounded so we were prepared for the raid. We sat in the dining room 鈥� the sitting room was only used on special occasions like Christmas or when we had visitors 鈥� and listened to the guns firing in the distance. We could hear the thud of bombs falling, and knew they were quite close. At this point, Mr Conway said we should take to the fields, as we were sitting ducks, but Mother was having none of it. 鈥淚f you want to go, you go鈥�, she said 鈥渂ut no b**** German is going to make me leave my home!鈥� That was that 鈥攚e were staying.

We had two easy chairs in the room 鈥� Mr Conway sat in one and I was curled up in the other with my father sitting on the arm. Suddenly there was this tremendous explosion. The walls seemed to rattle. All I remember was my father flinging himself over me as I am sure for that split second he thought the house was coming down. Not long after, the all clear sounded. We knew somewhere close had been hit, and my father went out to see if he could help anyone. He came back to say three houses in the next street had been flattened, but there were no serious casualties.

The next morning we went round to see for ourselves, and there was this huge mound of earth and rubble where the road used to be. They said it was a big bomb, but the heavy clay soil had absorbed the worst of the blast. I clearly remember being very pleased that I didn鈥檛 have to go to school that day!

As a rule, when the siren sounded my father would carry me downstairs and put me to bed under the ding room table. My parents must have snoozed in the armchairs. We could often hear planes going over and gunfire. Mother would say 鈥淏ristol鈥檚 having it tonight鈥�, or 鈥淭hey鈥檙e targeting Birmingham.

I must have been about seven when Mr. Conway left us. Mother decided, as I was a bit older, that she would do war work rather than have another stranger in the house. She worked in a small factory owned by Smiths, the clock people, called Smiths Systems. She spent the rest of the war riveting aircraft tail planes etc. to keep the RAF supplied.

I have already spoken of our lodger, but most people who had a spare room had some one. One of my friends鈥� parents had two ATS girls. When they went, they had a man from the War Office, and another who was a labourer of some sort. They had to share a room which was not a very happy mix! Another friend of mine told me she and her sister slept in camp beds all through the war on either side of their parents鈥� bed as their spare room was let to a young wife and child of an RAF man. Would people be so willing to take in strangers these days, I wonder?

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