大象传媒

These are the war-time memories of my mother, Mrs Gladys Hayes, nee Stone, formerly of 49, Newlyn Road, London N17. She was one of 11 children and died in 1993 at the age of 79. She had planned to set down much of her life in writing but ill health overtook her and only a little, written in November 1990, exists:

鈥淢y husband was working at Coventry, rewiring a big insurance office. He was in lodgings in the town, came home weekends, we were being bombed [in London] quite a lot, so my husband said 鈥淚 will take you back to Coventry with me, it鈥檚 not safe in London鈥�.

The first night I went there, the raids started. We made our way to shelters each night. The weekend of the big raid, the landlady and her husband and small son, went on a visit to relatives in Worcestershire. I cleaned the house up and the pram I had borrowed while I stayed there. My baby was 10 months old. She went off to sleep, so we decided to play cards, my husband, me and a young man that worked with my husband.

Suddenly a raid started. We just didn鈥檛 have time to get to a shelter. It seemed relays of planes just dropping the bombs. We crawled under the landlady鈥檚 big double bed. My baby never cried once. We said our goodbyes to each other. The young man said he just wished he was with his mother.

All night long there was exploding pots of paint in a factory at the end of the garden. A big school opposite was a roaring inferno. We could hear the firemen shouting to each other, trying to get the fire under control. Every time a bomb dropped all was quiet for a few seconds, then the firemen shouting, to be heard over the noise of another load of planes coming in.

It seemed as if there was just a solitary gun trying to protect us, which was hopeless. After a most terrifying night dawn came. We crawled out from under the bed. People just stared at us, as the house was a shambles, they just didn鈥檛 realize we were in there.

I was so terrified all I wanted to do was go home. We got a lift to Rugby Station as it was so badly bombed we had a job to get through the roads, craters everywhere. After a nightmare day, we arrived in London right in the middle of a raid. We got another lift to our house. I ran with baby straight through to our garden shelter.鈥�

The address in Coventry was 13, Newland Road. Mum also noted 鈥淓velyn Laye was at the Palace Theatre, she was lovely鈥�. By the age she gives of my sister (the baby) these events must have been around late 1940.

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