大象传媒

My sister Patsy and I frequently stood on our high garden wall in the late evening, watching planes flying over Bristol dropping bombs and fighters attacking the bombers. As teenagers we found it exciting in some ways. We almost got used to it.

In 1942 Bath was bombed. I was working for Bathavon food office at the time. I cycled from our village into Bath and managed to get to where I should have been working. I vividly recall standing on Midland Station steps and all I could see was poor people wandering bewildered, smoke and dirty water, firemen and charred broken buildings everywhere, my office burned down by incendiary bombs. I was so shocked. It was total desolation.
People swarmed into the fields around our village to get out of the city, they were afraid there would be more bombs again. They were right. The people stayed in the fields for many days.
One year later I was working for the local newspaper the Bath Chronicle. My job was to take memorial notices from families who had lost relatives the year before. I will never forget a man who came in to place a notice. He had lost his wife and five children the previous year. This greatly upset me.

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