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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Odilia Roberts from the Derby Action Team on behalf of Barbara Emmott and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I don’t remember the war affecting my own life to any great extent. My father fought in the battle of the Somme and was home on leave in 1941. He seemed preoccupied (not surprisingly) until one night when the air raid sirens went off. It was rare to see any planes in Yorkshire but this particular night the Germans were flying over Leeds apparently looking for the armourments factory in Crossgates (a suburb of Leeds). The factory was mainly underground with little grassy hills and chimneys sticking out every now and then. And the Germans never found it!
It was the middle of the night and I heard my father shouting to my mother to get the children’s coats, he woke us up and very calmly said we had to go down to the cellar because there was a terrible storm and the lightening wouldn’t affect us down there. I remember feeling very excited until I heard the bomb drop — we just knew it wasn’t thunder! My mum was arguing with dad because she thought we should go to the shelters in the park near our house but dad said we could be killed getting there so we stayed put. After a couple of hours we went back to bed. The following morning the kids at school were so excited about the night’s events that they couldn’t wait for it to happen again!
The bomb fell on factories at East End Park in Leeds — but they missed the R.O.F in Crossgates.

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