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This story has been added to the People’s War website by Jenny Burnett on behalf of Florence Cornell. Florence has given her permission and understands the sites terms and conditions.

We had been living in South Wales. Mother moved to Portsmouth and I had a new Dad. My brother Ted was born in 1940. We more or less lived in the shelter. There was candlelight from a jar in the corner, and a kettle on an oil stove. The bunk beds were made up with blankets and pullovers but it could be very cold. One night, Dad said a land mind had dropped, we could feel the ground shake. Then water started coming in from underneath. We had to get out — there was rubble everywhere. The garden wall was down; our house was completely gone except the walls. Dad sent us back to Wales to live with our grandfather — we came back to Portsmouth three times and were bombed out each time! I didn’t return to Portsmouth after that until I was 12.

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