大象传媒

Following Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain, it became obvious that air raids would start in earnest before too long, and this they did. Thus began the most terrifying period of my life and one which I have earnestly prayed ever since would never, ever be repeated.

At the beginning of the war, volunteers from people aged 35 and over were called for, to become Air Raid Wardens. My dear Aunt Nellie (a former school teacher) was one of the first to volunteer.

The City was carved up into hundreds of small units, with a Post at the centre of each. Basically, they were concrete square huts with flat roofs and one door into them; they were partly divided inside by an inner wall. The room was equipped with a table and a couple of chairs, one or two camp beds, telephone and various fire fighting equipment; rattles for gas warnings and a series of Orders, telephone numbers, emergency numbers street maps, etc., on the walls. They were cheerless, functional and frightening. Each Post had a number painted clearly outside and the people who manned them, day and night, were responsible for ensuring that all the volunteers for that Post, received all Orders and direction which flooded in and would remain at their posts should an 鈥榠ncident鈥� occur in their particular area.
By the end of 1940, it was obvious that there weren鈥檛 nearly enough Wardens, and the age for volunteers was reduced to 18. I decided to volunteer.
My Post was in Central Park, alongside Peverell Park Road, not far from Plymouth Argyle Football ground at Home Park. This Post was responsible for the two dozen or so roads which ran in serried ranks away from the other side of the main road. Each road was allocated two Wardens and I, together with a student from the Technical College named Douglas Ackland, was allocated the road next to my own home. Our Post was numbered 1F2. Doug (who had style!) somehow managed to acquire some metal numbers and letters which he painted white and affixed prominently at the front of our black, metal helmets! Needless to say, we became great friends. Perhaps friendship might have blossomed if not for the uniforms, gas masks, first aid kits, emergency rations (mainly sugar lumps which Doug pinched from his mother) and water bottles, torches and countless other items which gave little room for manoeuvre in any direction even if, additionally, we were not in the midst of an air raid!
By this time, most people had been supplied with an Anderson air-raid shelter which had to be dug into the back garden. These shelters had to have their base at least 6 feet underground and I believe I am right in saying that you paid 拢1 for the shelter and 拢3 to have somebody dig the hole in which to put it.
It was the Wardens鈥� duty to ensure that they knew everyone living in the road for which they were responsible and, obviously for everyone in the road to know the Wardens. Doug and I visited each house in turn to introduce ourselves and make a list of names and details 鈥� particularly important if someone lived alone, was deaf or handicapped, had an animal(s) and so on. When the sirens sounded after dark, we had to check each house and make sure that the owners were in their own shelters or were going to the public shelter. This had been built at the top of the road.
Sometimes it was comparatively easy to marshal our charges, if the planes did not arrive soon after the Alert. On other occasions, however, the planes and bombs came first and THEN it could be quite tricky. It was no wonder that my Mother had grave doubts about the wisdom of her daughter鈥檚 rushing out into the open under these circumstances but, somehow, although it caused her grievous distress, to me it was almost exhilarating. During the earlier period the raids were sporadic 鈥� it was only later that the deluge came and we all retired to the shelters each night.
And it did have its lighter side. One particular night, the Alert was sounded well after people had gone to bed. Doug and I had got most of our people sorted out when we beheld shadowy figures in the back lane between the houses. There were no lights of any sort of course (indeed one of our duties was to report ANYONE even thinking about carrying a light) but we were allowed a torch each. The glasses of these were covered with paper with a half inch slit cut into them. Hurrying towards these figures shouting warnings as we could hear the drone of planes overhead, we discovered old Mrs. Matthews 鈥� who must have been in her eighties 鈥� and her daughter making a slow, tortuous way up to the public shelter. Mrs. Hodges was urging her Mother to 鈥榟urry鈥� but the old dear showed little or no inclination to do so. Fortunately, there were two men standing at the top of the steps leading down into the shelter and they rushed to us and swept the old lady up and carried her the rest of the way. We learnt later that she had insisted upon putting her bloomers on under her nightdress and had stuck both legs through the same hole!!

Another evening, my parents and I were sitting in our dining room at the back of the house, reading. No Alert had sounded but suddenly we heard what we thought were planes. My Father and I rushed to the front door. We were assailed by a noise which sounded as if the air was being sucked out of balloons or tyres and the road was ablaze with light; it was the first incendiary bomb raid on the City. My Father and I slapped on our helmets and grabbed the stirrup pump and bucket which stood in readiness outside each house. There was an incendiary like a huge sparkler blazing merrily outside our front door on the pavement. By this time, people were yelling that their houses had been invaded through the roofs so my Father grabbed our step ladder and rushed off to the nearest stricken house. There, I learned later, he and the homeowner and another neighbour managed to get up in the loft and extinguish the bomb before the rafters caught light. In the meantime, I managed to put the first incendiary out and the top part of the road was in darkness again. Just at that moment, a double decker bus was being driven up the road at a fast lick for the main road was blocked and the driver was obviously hoping to reach his depot by a back route. As I stood amazed at this sight, the driver yelled 鈥淲ell done girl!鈥� and waved one hand out of the window!
That particular night COULD have been curtains for me because a stick of ordinary bombs fell down in the nearby Park and the anti-aircraft gunners were letting rip with all they had. I decided to crouch down against the base of the wall of the top house in the road. As I crouched there, I suddenly heard a loud, metallic noise and saw a spark as a piece of shrapnel landed on the pavement beside me. It was quite a large jagged piece which I had the sense not to pick up straight away. I kept it for years and then lost it.
This was in March 1941 and it started a period of about 35 nights of raids consecutively and was quite the most appalling period of the war for us personally The atmosphere during the day time was indescribable 鈥� rumours were rife, a deadly hazard of war, we discovered. For those poor folk who had suffered the loss of dear ones it was heartbreaking; for injured folk removed to the damaged hospitals it was a nightmare, especially for those unable to move for they must have felt like sitting ducks. For everyone else, tiredness was the worst enemy and the endless struggle to try and find some food (if the shop hadn鈥檛 been destroyed). Plus, of course, the constant battle to conserve water because it didn鈥檛 take long for the water mains to be fractured and the gas and electricity to be cut off. In our little breakfast room in the house in Torr View Avenue where we lived, my Father had early on in the war opened up the chimney and laid in a small store of sticks, coal and wood. The initial efforts to get the fire alight in that tiny grate in that little room would have been comic if it hadn鈥檛 been such a matter of life and death, so to speak. Have you ever tasted really smoky tea?
By the beginning of April, I think most of the houses around had had their windows and doors either twisted or broken. This, I suspect, was because when the raids first started, everybody rushed to shut themselves in 鈥� which was the worst thing to do because bomb blast did very strange things. It mainly flashed sideways rather than in every direction so one house would have all its windows broken while next door might remain unscathed. Eventually, we all left open every door and window that had so far escaped.
On the nights my Father did not go to work, he would put a wooden kitchen chair in the cupboard under the stairs, sit down and promptly fall asleep. Bless his heart, he had been in the engine room of his ship throughout the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and he claimed this cured him of worry about battle action. My Mother wouldn鈥檛 speak to him when he finally emerged or condescended to go to our shelter and see if she was all right!!

One of our young friends at that time, was Doug Lapthorne, who lived in the next road to us. He was a Warden for a road further away down Peverell Park Road, but used to pop over and see us during lulls in raids, and to check on his Grandma, who lived in the top house of our Duty Road. One night, there was a pretty nasty raid in progress and our friend rushed up to his Grandma鈥檚 house as she wasn鈥檛 well and was in bed. He had passed Doug Ackland and me further down the road and, not long after he left us, we heard the string of bombs coming down. Doug threw me down on the ground and more or less fell on top of me. There was this most ghastly noise, followed by that appalling smell of old plaster and rubbish which always accompanied any 鈥淚ncident鈥�. I remember lying there, petrified, because it was obvious that the bomb had dropped somewhere close.
My first thought was for my own house as we got up and looked around. It wasn鈥檛 at all easy to SEE much anywhere 鈥� but, sadly, the house in ruins was Grandma鈥檚 and she and Doug were inside it. I had no thought initially that they must have been killed and, not long after, I was quite relieved to see some people carrying someone out of the rubble. They laid Grandma down on the pavement and I saw that her leg was bent at an impossible angle. Whilst Doug went to help the Rescue Squad, I endeavoured to straighten the leg and was just getting my water bottle out to offer her some water, when a rescue chap came back and gently told me I was wasting my time. For some inexplicable reason, I could not, did not, think it possible she was dead, God rest her. At the age of 19, this was my first personal contact with a victim of the war.
Someone called me from the entrance to the public shelter opposite to help with some injured people from the house directly opposite and I rushed over, relieved to have something definite to do. We always kept a couple of jugs of water on a ledge in the shelter and I used one to dip in a bandage and clean up a nasty, bleeding cut on Mr. Eva鈥檚 face. He and his wife kept the corner shop opposite Grandma鈥檚 house. Mrs Eva had fainted and was being looked after by some of the people in the shelter. Her old Mother, Mrs. Cross, lived with them and she, poor dear, although not injured was absolutely covered in dust and plaster and looked most eerie in the dimmed light of the shelter. Normally the lights were reasonably bright but, at a time like this with the doorway open to allow freer access for casualties, etc., they were almost non-existent. Poor old Mrs. Cross, who I had known all my life, suddenly stretched out her hand and seized the jug I was holding and put it to her lips. She drank copiously and, then gave it back to me and before I could use my startled wits she said. 鈥淕od bless you, Sheila, I needed that鈥�. I forbore to tell her it was the blood stained water from her son-in-law鈥檚 gashed head!

This particular raid heralded the start of the deadly raids of mid-April 1941 in which nearly all the Plymouth casualties occurred. These nights WERE hell. I well remember one in particular 鈥� my Father was working that night and I had taken my Mother up to the public shelter for company. My brother Frank had by this time been evacuated with his school to Buckfast Abbey on the edge of Dartmoor. The first bombs to fall that night appeared to have been fitted with some sort of fins and this caused the most horrific screaming as the string came down 鈥� like fiends from hell. The added horror was the fact that no one knew what it was. We were all looking and waiting for the next German invention promised by Hitler. Talk about a war of words, and nerves.
By this time, our anti-aircraft defences had been improved and batteries of guns were firing in the Park. The City was covered with barrage balloons 鈥� though a fat lot of good they were. Once a balloon was hit it burst into a magnificent glowing pink ball of burning gas, lighting up the place for miles around. The noise was overwhelming and the planes kept droning on and on and the strings of bombs kept falling, though fortunately not in our area. It must have been about this time that the Germans started dropping land mines which came down on parachutes. They went up with an unimaginable bang and left enormous craters.
This evening, I recall becoming separated from Doug for some reason and I rushed home, forgetting that my Mother was in the public shelter. I suddenly remembered that old Ma Ward was in bed next door with her daughter, Mildred, who had refused to leave her so I rushed in to see them. I met Mildred in the passage and she just opened her arms to me and said, 鈥淪heila, we鈥檙e not going to survive this, are we?鈥� And I just remember standing there, our arms around each other, and I said 鈥淢il, please say some prayers, I just can鈥檛鈥�. She started the Our Father and went on to make up a prayer for deliverance and all the time, the guns barked, shrapnel fell all around, sometimes hitting the roof, the pavements outside or the steps to the houses. There was an eerie glow everywhere because there were so many fires, bombs dropping all over the place and I was dripping with the sweat of absolute terror. She clung to me and I to her and there was absolutely nothing either of us could do. We were just terrified and trapped. It wasn鈥檛 until nearly dawn that the bombs stopped and we relaxed enough to set about shaking ourselves and to start doing the rounds of all the people 鈥� all just as terrified as I was. It was noticeable that, at such times, people didn鈥檛 say much 鈥� just 鈥淎ll right?鈥� - 鈥淵es, thank you, you?鈥� One was just stunned.
That was the night, 2lst April 1941, when two of my classmates, Sheila Cummins and Winnie McGuirk were killed. Sheila had also decided to become a Warden, she lived near North Station and she was just entering her house by the garden path when a bomb dropped and blew her leg off. She died the next day; she was 19, exactly three months older than I was. She and I had been amongst a group of 16 girls from my school who had gone to Germany in September 1937 in the care of the German mistress, Miss Forder She was exceptionally pretty 鈥� a real English rose with a superb complexion. She and I were bosom pals. On the German trip, we were taken one night to a Beer Garden and there was some dancing. Some German Army soldiers were there for they were on manoeuvres in the Rhine area. One of these very blond soldiers came up to Miss Forder, clicked his heels and asked in German if he could be allowed to dance with Sheila. He was the only German to ask and Miss Forder, hesitantly, after asking Sheila herself if she would like to, gave permission.. It would be honest to admit that the rest of us were extremely impressed by this polite exchange and sat by enviously. We were all shepherded away soon after, I recall. I鈥檝e often wondered how long that German lasted after the war started. Our other classmate, Winnie, was killed outright when her hospital ward was hit; she was a trainee nurse. May they rest in peace.

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