大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Bethany Howell and Jenny Ashcroft from Dover Grammar School for Girls and has been added to the website on behalf of Colin Copley with his permission and he fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

In the summer of 1940 after the evacuation of Dunkirk Dover became a subject of considerable attacks by enemy aircraft. One Sunday morning about 11:30 my mother was preparing dinner. The air raid warning sounded and I had taken my position on top of the Anderson shelter to look out for any enemy aircraft that may be about. After some time I spotted seven Stukas heading towards Hawkinge as I thought. Suddenly they changed direction and headed straight for my house. I shouted to my mother to come to the shelter now but as she didn鈥檛 appear to be in a great hurry I jumped off the shelter and ran to the back door and shouted again with an emphasis on the now. At that point my mother was turning off the gas of the cooker and came out with a Yorkshire pudding bowl in her hand. I managed to get my mother into the shelter and on the way in she put the Yorkshire pudding bowl on the step. I jumped in behind her then closed the door and by this time the aircraft were getting close and by the time I had got on to the floor the first bombs were on their way. There was a massive explosion as the first bomb went off and the air raid shelter door was ripped off and we were both covered in earth. We had to wait for the next six aircraft to arrive and drop their bombs as dive bombers tend to follow one another. After the last aircraft had dropped their bombs we then knew that it was safe to get up. I can well remember the expression on my mother鈥檚 face when she realised that the batter pudding was now full of earth despite the fact that we had lost quite a few windows and had other damage to the house. After this we realised that the batter pudding didn鈥檛 really matter as we were both uninjured and that we had better start clearing up the mess in the house.

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