大象传媒

My name was Gwen Morley and I was 11 years of age when war began in 1939. My father had died of heart disease in 1930 aged 25 years when I was 18 months old. My mother, brother John and I lived with my grandparents in Carshalton Surrey. My brother was 14 years old at the time of the Battle of Britain and travelled to London daily to work in an engineering company. On the 18th. of September 1940, I was going upstairs at around 7:30p.m. when a terrific force of air rushed passed me in the bathroom. Through the noise, smoke and debris, I heard my brother call to tell me to go across the road to a neighbours house. With various cuts and shock, my mother however, must have taken me. The air raid warden however forbade my grandparents and my brother to cross the road, so the went to Mr. and Mrs. Brown, our next door neighbour, where they all huddled together on the under stairs cupboard. Conditions became very cramped and as the air raid began to subside, my brother came out and Mrs. Browns sister put out a foot to ease her discomfort. At this moment, what turned out to be a delayed action bomb, exploded,killing my brother,severing the ladies foot and demolished four adjacent properties. The occupants of the cupboard were recovered alive sometime later from the debris. I did of course recover and years later a fragment of shrapnel came out of my hand, having entered in my legs. Re homed I had many other experiences of going to bed in the cellar, a shelter in the park and finally elevating to a Morrison shelter in the dining roon through the remaining Blitz ant the onslought of V1 V2 attacks. Stragely this became part of every day life along with rationing and I'm still here to tell the tale. My motherr survived until 1986, when at the age of 90 years, she had been a widow for 56 years, still unwilling to talk about the losses she endured. Gwen Bryne, 21, East albany Road, Seaford East Sussex BN25 1TT.

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