大象传媒

i was 11 year old in 1939 and living in Herne Bay. we moved to 32 york road, Canterbury in 1940. One of the many blitzes i remember on Canterbury was October 1942. My 41 year old mother, brother Brian (5) and myself (14) were shopping on a saturday afternoon in the city centre. we had more or less finished as the siren wailed - my mother decided to make our way home, through St Margarets Street into Castle Street. By this time the German planes which had been bombing the city at random decided to machine gun Castle Street shops and we automatically laid flat, pressing our bodies against a wall which circled an old cemetery (no longer there). The windows in the shops opposite us were shattered as the bullets whistled over our heads. after a time which seemed endless the enemy planes moved off. we were called over to the butchers shop by a soldier - too late as the raid was already over. we pulled ourselves together and started for home, struggling over rubble and eventually came to our home (32 York road) which was no longer there - just a pile of bricks and our furniture dangling precariously in mid-air. Not the best Saturday afternoon shopping expedition. (Photo of our hose in the Canterbury archives)

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