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A Day in the Life of a Nine Year Old
Author — Raymond Hall Davison

The year is 1941, I am 9 years old. It’s a late autumn evening and we are sitting at the fireside waiting for the sirens to inform us that the German bombers are on their way.

At prompt 10 o’clock the sirens sound and off we go into the brick shelter in the yard. Dad, my uncle and myself go into the back lane to meet the other neighbours for a chat. Total darkness.

Suddenly we hear the drone of the German bombers approaching the town. We hesitate. Out of the darkness the sky is brilliantly lit up. Scores of searchlights roam the skies looking for German planes. Suddenly the ack—ack guns commence firing. The noise is frightening but exciting. I have on my tin helmet as shrapnel begins to drop from the sky. Now the bombers are overhead, we race to the air raid shelter.

Tonight they have decided to drop incendiary bombs. I rush into the yard with Father and Uncle to find that three of these bombs have fallen into the yard and are sprouting flames. We manage to douse the flames with a stirrup pump, which has been issued to every household. We are lucky that no incendiary bombs have fallen on the house itself. What an exciting night it has been. 4 a.m. and we are just going to bed.

I get up very early the next morning so that I can collect as much shrapnel from the street. I know that my pal who lives three doors away will be planning to get out before me.

I arrive at school feeling very tired after having such an exciting night. We have one hour’s gas mask practise and finish school at lunchtime.

It’s a lovely afternoon. My pal and I decide to play quietly in the street. Suddenly a German fighter, flying low over the coast to avoid the radar screens, machine guns the streets. Because of the low flying there has been no air raid siren warning. What an exciting day so far.

It has been a beautiful day, sunshine all day, and it is going to be a clear starlit night. This means, almost certainly, that it is going to be a long night of death and destruction. Sure enough, at about midnight, the sirens sound the alert and hordes of German bomber planes arrive over the town.
Here we go again!

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