大象传媒

Born in Castle Bromwich, October 1940 in Birmingham, my mother came up from a night in an air raid shelter and gave birth to me, very speedily, with just a neighbour in attendance.

My mother was very blas茅 about the bombing until one night a land mine exploded in the road (Heathway), blowing in all the windows. I was asleep in my cot and shards of glass flew across the room, showering me, and embedding themselves in the walls. Mother lost her nerve and Dad moved us to the south of the city.

I have many memories of the later years of the war. Houses demolished by bombs and left derelict, my father travelling to Redditch for the night shift at HDA watching the explosions and barrage balloons anchored up the road, air raid shelters on King's Norton Green and spending nights under the shelter occupying our best room.

Every evening we pulled down the blackouts and one night mum had put sheets out to dry, until irate neighbours knocked them up demanding they were taken in. They were afraid the Germans would see them and drop bombs!

My grandmother watched as a dog fight took place above her head and my other grandmother went out to her backyard where an incendiary bomb had landed and put it out with ashes!

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