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Every evening around seven o’clock the siren would go and we would quickly put on as much warm clothing as we could as it was always cold and damp in the shelter, when we were ready Mum would say, ‘right, are we all ready?’ and the four of us would stand at the door, Mum would put the light out and she would open the door, in the winter it was freezing. Then we would make our way down the path to our neighbours shelter. Meanwhile the guns were banging away at enemy aircraft whilst searchlights criss-crossed the sky. The smell of cordite was everywhere and the sky was red from bombs that had dropped before we got into the shelter.

We would sit for hours on bunk beds unable to sleep for the amount of noise going on. We would cluster together to keep warm; we had electric lights in the shelter, so you could see the constant rivulets of condensation running down the corrugated iron frame of the shelter, the continued smell of the earth and muskiness of bedding that had been left down there. Our neighbours mother was always praying on her beads, and I must admit I did quite a lot myself. If there was a lull, our neighbour or Mum would go up to the house to make tea as the flasks ran out very quickly. Then it would all start up again.

If we were lucky, we would get the all clear around three o’clock and manage to get some sleep till eight, then we would go off to school. It was eerie, the quietness after so much noise, like you had suddenly gone deaf. On the way to school we would look for shrapnel and be eager to find out if everyone was alright. We would hear which areas caught the close explosions we had heard earlier and the teachers would settle us down quickly to get some work done in case the siren went again. This sort of routine went on for five years. As children, we were always tired, had colds that would today be called bronchitis, they never went away. If you had a childhood illness, you still sat in the shelter. My sister had whooping cough and we had a dreadful time with her in the shelter. It’s amazing she survived.

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