大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by CSV Storygatherer Ian Hollins on behalf of Leonard Woodman. The story has been added to the site with his permission. And Leonard Woodman fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

I'm not sure of the date. I was only about five years old, but my Dad had come home. He had been badly wounded in the leg at Bologne, France with the Welsh Guards. He was a regular soldier. Dad was dressed in his walking wounded suit - bright blue, white shirt, red tie. He wore a leg calliper and used a walking stick. We lived in a terraced house in Liverpool, densely populated and a couple of miles from the docks. Dad had only been home a couple of days when the air raid siren went off. For some reason, we used to go up the road to Aunty Bella's house to shelter. It was a big raid and it lasted for what seemed to be a long time. I used to play with my toy soldiers, and we were all crouched under the stairs. Suddenly, there was a loud bang. An incendiary bomb had hit the house. We all escaped to the air raid shelter in the middle of the road, which was crowded, hot and smelly, but able to withstand a small bomb direct hit. The siren sounded the all clear, and we went home. Aunty Bella of course was homeless, and I don't know what happened to her and her family, although later on she moved into another house the next street. We returned to our house only to find that a piece of railway line, which took six men to lift, had been blown about a mile from a direct hit on an ammunition train on the Clubmoor sidings. The piece of track skimmed the rooftops, knocking off the chimney pots of neighbouring houses and smashed through the back yard wall, into next doors' kitchen. It also took out our living room window and wall. The sight that met us had my mother in tears. In front of the window had stood a bird cage which housed our pet canary, Bill. There was no sign of the cage or the bird, just a pile of rubble and a mountain of soot. Mum and Dad started to clear up the mess, moving the debris hand by hand, trying to salvage any items they could. After a couple of hours work, my dad uncovered the bird cage. "Bill" still inside apparently dead. My dad smoothed off the soot, blew into its' beak, and sure enough "Bill" shook its self, and started whistling again. The next thing they recovered was dad's calliper which he had left behind in his hurry to evacuate at the sound of the air raid siren. A nice homecoming for my father, eh??? But luckily no fatalities in the street.

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