大象传媒

This story was submitted by Maureen Tomison and has been added to the website on behalf of Clive Greaves with his permission. He fully understands the site and the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

Death threat

Clive Greaves was living in the middle of London and was only 3 when the war broke out. 鈥淚 remember on one occasion we came out of the air raid shelter to see a whole lot of unexploded bombs in our garden. We were very worried in case they went off so my father and I collected them very gently and put them into buckets full of water to stop them fizzing which meant they were going to go off. I was too young to feel frightened although a lot of bombs went off around us all the time.
鈥淢y cousin and her two sons lived very near us, and sadly their house took a direct hit from a doodle bug and everyone was killed.
鈥淢y father was manager of Gordon鈥檚 Gin and because of his job was not allowed to move out of Central London. However most of the staff including the Managing Director were evacuated to Aylesbury, a quiet place in the country. One day the MD phoned up and could hear the regular noise of the doodlebugs falling all around us all the time. 鈥榃hat鈥檚 that noise,鈥� he demanded. When I told him it was doodlebugs and that they fell around us nearly all the time, he became very angry and shouted; 鈥� you had better move or I鈥檒l kill you.鈥� We thought it was very funny that he was threatening to kill me with bombs falling all around us.鈥�

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