大象传媒

'This story was submitted to the People's War site by Rick Allden of the CSV 大象传媒 Coventry and Warwickshire Action Desk on behalf of Elizabeth Collins and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions'.

I remember it well

Dad was bent on joining the Navy, war had just been declared, and that鈥檚 why we moved to the big house, so Mum could earn extra money taking lodgers whilst Dad was away serving his country.
It didn鈥檛 turn out like that, Dad was told he was too old at 39years, so he joined the works police at the Lockeed, but the plan for lodgers still went ahead, and so we opened our home up. People thought we were evacuees at the new school, I quite enjoyed feeling special, I didn鈥檛 tell them we had only moved from the bottom end of town.

Soon our house was filled to bursting point, it was a good job we had the attic where us kids could sleep.
There was Mr. Whappels and Mr. Flegg, they were school teachers fleeing from Coventry after the all night raid had destroyed their school and caused so much devastation, then the family from Southampton, Mum, Dad and two children, they had the front room, whilst the school teachers lived in the room overlooking the back yard.
I guess the two lodgers Erna and Berta intrigued me most, they lived in one of the bedrooms upstairs, they had escaped from Czechoslovakia when the Germans invaded and came over the Channel in an open boat. They must have been in their early twenties; they didn鈥檛 seem sad, laughing a lot as they went off to the munitions factory where they worked just down the road. I can see them now, heads covered in the turbans, calling out to us in their broken English.

Just opposite our back door was the refuse depot, German prisoners of war worked there, they wore battledress type clothes with a big yellow circle on the back of their jackets: Ben, my twin, was learning German at school and use to practice talking to them.

Oh! I nearly forgot old Mrs. Baker. Not surprising I nearly forgot her, she was a gentle little soul, small in stature, still wearing buttoned up boots and never went anywhere without her hat on: did all her cooking over the small fire place in her back bedroom. I remember she was so proud to be a Mrs., even though her relationship with her husband had not been a very happy one, the thought for her of dying an old maid was worse than putting up with her abusive husband, which she was happy to tell us, had passed on sometime ago.
It was amazing how we managed with only one bathroom and the geyser that heated the water, constantly needing repair.
The cellar was used for all sorts of things, at the sound of an air raid siren we would all gather down there, with blankets wrapped round us. No central heating in those days, but all the coal for the different lodgers was stored down there, along with eggs in water glass stored in a bucket, and on a shelf sometimes a jelly taken down there to set ready for Sunday tea: a big treat.

This story was donated to the People鈥檚 War website by Elizabeth Collins, of the Leam Writers. If you would like to find out more about Leam Writers call 0845 900 5 300.

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