大象传媒

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Between 1942 and 1943 my granddad Neville was about 12 years old.
He had gone to a cinema in Leicester called the Princess Cinema. Whilst he was in there a close air raid took place, the cinema manager came onto the stage and told the audience that the city was under attack and if they wished to stay in the cinema to watch the rest of the film they could move to the seats under the Balcony for safety.
When the film had finished he went outside in the street. During the air raid, many buildings had been damaged. A shoe factory opposite the cinema had been levelled into a pile of burning rubble. He next went up the street to try and get home but there were bomb craters and shrapnel all along the road, he had to find another way.
Neville went back to a bridge called Swain Street Bridge which was over a railway junction, near this was a huge smouldering crater with a double decker bus in it! He turned around again to continue back the way he had come and as he passed one of the underground shelters a policeman hastily grabbed him by the collar and told him to stay in the shelter all night.
Next morning he had to find his way home through all the bombed streets.
There was a land mine outside his school so it was closed for quite a few days.
On that very same night, his two friends who鈥檙e brothers had been killed in the bombings.

The end.

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