大象传媒

My parents were having a new home built in the suburbs of Exeter, in Countess Weir to be exact, in May of 1940.

We had just relocated from Bristol as my parents had decided that Exeter would be a nicer place in which to live.

I was a lad of 13 and was looking forward to living in our new home as it was in a semi-rural setting and I had already explored the fields belonging to farmer Langdon.

While our house was being built, we rented rooms in a huge, dark Victorian 3 storey house not far from the center of Exeter. I shared an enormous bedroom with my parents with my bed near a window. A large fireplace dominated the room with a mantlepiece running the entire width of the room, on which were various china ornaments, among them a pair of large Pekingese dogs nearest my bed.

I was sent up to bed while my parents visited with the other tenants downstairs.

I was awakened by a tremendous crashing noise but could not see anything because of the amount of choking dust in the air. This dust smelled very strongly as it came from the old house's rapidly disintegrating timbers. I was also covered in blood caused when one of those Pekingese dogs came crashing down on my head; it was this that had awakened me. My pajama jacket was gone and the next thing I knew I was holding on to one of the chimneys outside where the wall of my room had been and looking down on a sea of faces that were staring up at me with horror and alarm.

A fireman had erected a long ladder and was climbing towards me exhorting me to hold on and that I would soon be O.K. Another fireman had entered the other side of the bedroom and as I looked, the entire floor together with my parents' bed and the fireman, disappeared with a tremendous crash to the floor below.

The fireman on the ladder threw me over his shoulder and deposited me safely on the ground where someone covered me with a blanket. I was taken to a nearby house and given a glass of milk after which I fell asleep.

I found out later that the house had been hit by a bomb dropped by a German bomber, one of a stick that failed to explode. Much of the house had collapsed but luckily no one had been killed that night.

The next few days are a lttle hazy but I know someone had given me clothes to wear and I was taken to the hospital to see my parents. My mother had a severely gashed leg and was, of course, traumatized by what had happened but my father was in worse shape as he had been sitting by the fireplace which collaapsed on top of him, severely wounding him.He had a heart condition and subsequently succumbed to his injuries and complications caused by his health and the trauma of the bombing.

Some time later, I was taken to the cinema to see a film that I can't remember and the person who had taken me decided to leave immediately after the film was over. We were walking down the road about 200 yards away when an arial mine exploded directly on the cinema, killing many people who were still inside...another lucky escape for me.

My mother and I moved shortly thereafter to our new house. On many nights I remember watching the searchlights pinpointing German bombers and was excited by the noise and flashes of the anti-aircraft guns firing at them from the nearby hills but when shrapnel started to land nearby, I was shooed into the house.

Each night it seemed Exeter was being indiscriminately bombed but as we were a long way out in the suburbs we could watch the action of our defenders from a safe distance; sometimes during the day we could watch dog fights over the hills and high up in the sky.Luckily,no bombs fell anywhere near us for the remainder of the war.

One of the enduring memories I have of those many air raids was that when we went to our safety shelter, which was under the stairs, I was always given chocolate- a rare treat indeed in those severely rationed days.

As a result of this bombing, I now suffer from agrophobia, a fear of heights brought on,no doubt, by my horrific experience of hanging on to a rapidly disintegrating chimney while looking down at all those people who seemed to be so far away from me at that time.

A while later it was decided( by whom I don't know) that I was O.K.mentally and physically to go back to school; accordingly, I set off for school which was about two miles away (no school buses in those days) but arriving at the site of the school, I found it gone- it had been bombed in the night.

So this is my story about World War Two. I'm amazed I can still remember most of that period of my life and I shall never, ever forget the smell of that dust that night...I'm sure it will stay with me for ever.

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