大象传媒

I suppose many would say my father was lucky.
As a young Cannock miner at the time of the First World War, he was considered by Lloyd George to be less expendable than the many thousands of his peers sent to France and Belgium as machine-gun fodder.
The outbreak of the Second World War saw him digging, but, regardless of his occupation, he was now past his sell-by date as a potential soldier. My father was therefore, like many others in similar circumstances, recruited to serve on the home front; in his case as an ARP warden. He had in fact enrolled with the Air-Raid Protection wardens as early as 1937 when the original call for volunteers came with war looking inevitable. ARP wardens had as their main tasks, usually after completing their normal day鈥檚 work, the business of guarding factories, airfields and other sensitive places.
In mid-November 1940 the Luftwaffe devastated the city of Coventry in a blanket-bombing raid. Over 550 civilians were killed, a further 1,200 were injured, 60,000 buildings were destroyed or damaged, 20 strategically important factories were seriously damaged and one third of Coventry鈥檚 population was made homeless, all in the course of one night. Such was the destruction that volunteers were sent from all over the Midlands to aid the stricken city. My father was amongst those men who spent many days and nights amidst the most appalling havoc.
He was digging again, albeit for corpses rather than for coal.
That twenty-something mile journey to Coventry was the furthest distance he travelled from his home in all his sixty-nine years, although he was destined to take the same route several more times in the following spring, as Coventry continued to suffer further bombardment.
I鈥檓 not so sure how lucky he was.
He could have done his digging in France, Germany, Italy, North Africa or even Burma.

[This story was submitted to the People's War site by Wolverhampton Libraries on behalf of Peter Hill and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions]

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