大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from 大象传媒 Radio Berkshire on behalf of Joy Sellwood and has been added to the site with his/her permission. Joy Sellwood fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

As a child I lived in Portsmouth and was there during the blitz of January 10th 1940. WE lived along the road from my aunt and her family, just opposite Palmer鈥檚 brush factory. On that night, as always when there was a bad air raid, we were all together in her house. It was my mother鈥檚 habit on these occasions to go out and see what was going on, and this night she came back with tales of fires in the distance and having been warned by the air raid wardens to go back and stay in doors.

My uncle came back from the ARP post where he spent most nights, because he was concerned for our safety and that of my cousin who was a polio victim and paralysed from the neck down. She had a special wheel chair with a long extension because she was unable to bend her legs. I remember the whistles of bombs falling ever closer and then the kitchen window breaking. We were in the living room which had a blast wall built outside the window, which stayed intact, but most of the others in the house could be heard shattering.

At some stage we were told we must get out of the house, and by the time the adults had manuvered my cousin into her wheel chair and we were making our way out at the front door, we realised that the kitchen was in flames. Being only 7at the time, I don鈥檛 think I realised enough about the situation to be frightened, probably more excited.

Outside in the road, we could see that the furniture had been taken out of the houses and stacked in the road. I recall seeing our piano being sprayed with water by the firemen. I learned afterwards that the water had been pumped up form the sea. We were told to walk to the railway station nearby and someone found us a space in the brick shelter there. This is where we spent most of the night, during which we continued to hear bombs falling and on one occasion the sound of bullets raining down, and we were told that the planes were machine gunning passengers as they left the train. Much later, it was still dark, we were taken by ambulance to a school, and given a place in the hall where we spent the night. In the morning my mother took me to the school cloakroom to wash and we were given bread and jam for breakfast. I didn鈥檛 think at the time about how terribly uncomfortable my cousin must have been propped in her wheel chair for all those hours. Later in the day people came round and took our names, and still later we learned that my uncle Jo from Fareham had been looking all over the city for us, scouring the relief stations. Some time in the afternoon we were taken, again in an ambulance, to Fareham, my aunt and her family to my uncle鈥檚 house and my mother and me to the house of another relative. I don鈥檛 think I was really aware of the situation we were in till then, when I realised that everything was gone, except the clothes I was wearing. I think my chief concern was the loss of my canary.

Weeks later, when all the debris had been cleared and the walls knocked down we went back to where the house had been, we could see or what seemed miles, everything was flattened, and I found some melted glass with wire in it which I thought must have been part of the birdcage.

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