大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War site on behalf of Lilian Sharp and has been added to the site with her permission...

At nine years old Lilian went to St. Mary's School in Manchester. She remembers that one day about half an hour before lunch, three glass fish tanks fell onto the floor, the shelves above them having come away from the wall, crashing into them. There was glass, water and fish all over the floor. The teacher asked Lilian to stay behind and help her clear up. The water had wet a lot of books and Lilian and her teacher carried them outside to dry in the playground. As they looked up a German plane flew low overhead, the children in the playground were screaming, terrified. The pilot kept trying to dive, but couldn't get low enough to use his machine gun as the playground was a small confined space. But he did get low enough for Lilian to see his face and she says it was lucky for the little one that he couldn't dive low enough.

She also remembers running to the Anderson shelter in the garden with a pile of blankets they kept at the bottom of the bed for such emergencies. The shelter had grass on the top of it to camouflage it.

She also recalls her brother carrying her baby sister to the shelter and almost being hit with a piece of red hot shrapnel.

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