大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War web site by Karen Elmes at the Building Exploratory on behalf of Doris Adams and has been added to the site with her permission. She fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

During the Blitz Doris and her family would have to go down to a shelter which they shared with the other families in Halton Mansions in Canonbury:

鈥淲e had to go down in dug-outs that were sand-bagged. Normally they were open spaces with lines and posts for putting your washing out, the drying ground we called it. But in view of the war they dug them all up into trenches, they made access down and put bunk beds down, but I didn鈥檛 like it, I鈥檇 rather sleep in my own bed! But my father was adamant that we should get out of the flat when the planes came over, and they came over on a regular basis. As the sun set so the sirens went and they didn鈥檛 stop sending the German bombers over and bombing us until the night was over and it was seven o鈥檆lock in the morning and you hadn鈥檛 had much sleep and it was time to go to work!鈥�

Doris remembers why she did not like being in the shelter:

鈥淚t was the smell of earth and being with other people. We were supposed to sleep and I can鈥檛 sleep with strangers around, and bunk beds aren鈥檛 all that good so I used to climb on the top and take a book and that was about the best I could do!鈥�

Doris鈥� father had father served in WW1 and was upset when WW2 broke out. The sound of the bombers flying overhead would make him shake. The fear associated with the sound of planes with bombing also affected Dorris:

鈥淔or years after, every time a plane went over I also shook. I was very, very nervous, I think a lot of us were because we hadn鈥檛 got over this fear of that planes meant bombs dropping on us.鈥�

This story was recorded by the Building Exploratory as part of a World War Two reminiscence project called Memory Blitz. To find out more please go to ^{About links}

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