大象传媒

I went to a small preparatory school in Darwen on the green, which occupied two big rooms on the first floor of the Weavers, Winders and Warpers Institute. The building is still there! The side windows look down towards the centre of Darwen.

One morning, I looked up from my desk and saw bombs falling about four or five - exactly like the pictures we had seen in the papers. I jumped up and shouted: "Bombs". i went to the front of the class and looked out of the window again and saw this great column of black dust and smoke, but I have no recollection of any sound. I don't remember any bang or the windows vibrating. We all ran into the basement air-raid shelter and stayed there until lunchtime when my father came and fetched me home for lunch. As far as I remember, everything went on as normal and we went back to school in the afternoon.

My parents were very calm about all this because my father had been a regular soldier and fought all through the first world war and mother had been a nurse at a military hospital. So they didn't let us dwell on it ... we just got on with life.

It was thought that bombs were aimed at Belgrave Mill because they were making shell cases in the mill at the time. But the bombs fell on the other side of the main road on Crown Street and there was a great deal of damage and loss of life.

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