大象传媒

My name is Stella Cowling nee Leather; I was born in Blackpool 1935 & had my first hint of the war to come when my dad decided to build an air aid shelter in our green house about 1939. He hit one of the water pipes it flooded; I was a banded. My dad Wallace Leather, some time around this time joined up in the Grenadier Guards. We moved to Manchester & I went to my first school. In our allotment, there was an air aid shelter & I remember my first taste of seeing bombs fall, our house windows were shattered with the blast, force, even though we were some way away from the actual falling bombs. My dad was home on leave, that night & decided we should return to safer Blackpool. The next time he was home on leave, it was his last, & I only saw him coming in the front door, as I was being taken out to hospital, isolation as I had scarlet fever, he kissed me & said "see you soon kid" I did through the hospital window & never again. I miss him to this day & often cry.

My mum moved to Blackburn to be near her family, & we'd only been here a few weeks when the post came, she never told us, just ran out, screaming, down to her sisters shop. I knew; didn't cry. Went to school, with my sister & cousin, who told the head master, who told the whole school that was when it hit me. Some how some one told my mum about a boarding school, for daughters of guards brigade men down in Caterham Surrey. It was a lovely place, but again the bombs we're near. We spent a week in the shelter, once; good job there was only about 30 - 40 girls. After this the school governors had us evacuated to Launcston Cornwall. The Surrey & Southern countryside was awash with tanks & such, & loads of U.S.A. service men.

We didn't stay long in Cornwall, a few months. I remember going home on holiday to mum. The train was packed with service men, we slept in the luggage rack, & on one such journey, we had the displease of a doodle bug bomb follow us, but (thank you god) it over flew us & landed in a field ahead.

The next blow to our happiness was a move, to another school, just before the Normandy landings. Our school for some reason shut, & the Catholics went to Folkestone & the C of E's to a big school, over four hundred girls in Hampstead, so we were very unhappy. No freedom, a lovely piece of history, Harry Vane House was next door, I cannot remember which centaury but Henry Vlll or somewhere near, Harry Vane House is now part of the school, Royal Soldiers Daughter School.

The war ended whilst I was there, & I left when I was 14 1/2 due to family problems.

I know my dad was killed in Tunisia & is at Medjez-el-bab war cemetery, but have never fore filled my dream to see it, none of my family have, sad.

I really miss him, still.

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