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SOME MEMORIES OF WORLD WAR 2:
When war was declared I was eight. I happened to be on holiday at my grandparents home in Newark, Nottinghamshire. The first night air raid wardens were running around blowing whistles which we understood was the signal that a gas attack was in progress. Dutifully we all put on our gas masks and sat in the dark. I don’t know how long we were sitting but eventually we were told we could take off our gas masks which we did and we children were packed off to a rather late bed.
As my home was Coventry with all its motor and armament industry my parents and grandparents decided the I should remain in Newark for a while. As nothing appeared to be happening I returned home after the Christmas holidays. To find that most of the children were evacuated and for the few who were left education was supplied on only two afternoons a week in a church hall. During the following months more children returned home and in the September we resumed lessons in school again. The war was beginning to hot up and I remember spending several days in the air raid shelters which had been built in the school grounds. We were directed into the shelters whenever the air raid sirens went and were allowed out again as the all clear sounded. I remember coming out of the shelter on one occasion to see a German aircraft going in a shallow dive with smoke coming from it pursued by a British fighter firing it guns in a continuous burst of fire. We school children cheered. The next day the German aircraft, a Messerschmitt Bf 110, was on display in a local park.
Then the night time raids began. It seemed as though at precisely 7.00pm each night the sirens would go and we retired to a shelter my father had built in the corner of the kitchen. He was never there as he drove a lorry for the Humber Car Company travelling every day between Coventry and London picking up parts for use at the Humber factory. We got quite used to going to bed in the shelter and sleeping there all night. It was cramped for three of us, my mother, my older sister and myself, but we made the best of the situation. Our home was in a dangerous location being within a short distance of a Rover factory, a Morris factory and an ordnance depot (which we understood had been built during the first world war by German prisoners of war). One night as we sat in our shelter there were three loud bangs and a heavy thud. Mum had taken the precaution of obtaining some medicine called Sal Volatile (something I don’t think is known these days). We were all visibly trembling so she gave each of us a dose to calm our nerves. The next day we discovered that four bombs had dropped on the ordnance factory. Three of the bombs had exploded doing quite a lot of damage inside and the fourth had dropped in a school yard next to the ordnance factory tunnelling under the school but not exploding. It took several days before it could be reached and defused.
On another occasion Dad had problems escaping from a barrage balloon which was damaged by high winds and seemed to chase him all the way home. It eventually became entangled in something about a hundred yards from our house. It took about two days to draw in the cable back to the winch and a lot of damage was done in getting it back.
Mum and Dad decided that we children should be moved away from Coventry again and Mum brought us to Repton, Derbyshire, where her brother lived with his wife and five children. We moved two weeks before the big raid on Coventry in November 1940 and on the night of the big raid we stood in the garden of our relative’s house watching the glow in the sky. Form forty miles away we weren’t able to decide whether it was Coventry or Birmingham under attack. The next evening we found out just how badly Coventry had been hit when Dad arrived for his weekend visit. He had managed to arrange to come to Derby to suppliers of parts to the Humber Company to let Mum know the situation at home. We hadn’t been affected by incendiary bombs that had destroyed the City centre but several bombs had been dropped around our home. One had fallen in the road immediately in front of the house, two had fallen into the canal which ran a short distance away, a house just along the street had been destroyed and a bungalow on the other side of the railway line which ran behind our house had also been demolished. It had taken Dad most of the day to get into Coventry to the Humber factory and it was quite late when he managed to reach us in Repton.
A few days before the big raid Dad had taken books from the Library and when he tried to returns them he found the Library had disappeared along with most of the buildings near it. He kept the books until after the war and then returned them with a letter of explanation. He received a rather surprised letter of thanks from the Library service. His reading tastes were rather unusual (he preferred books which had a lot of technical information in them and were probably some of the more expensive books in the Library.
My other outstanding memory of wartime from Coventry was being taken back there the early following year. Mum took me into a community canteen which had been set up in the centre of Coventry for lunch. Afterwards she took me into the Cathedral to look at the remains. As a now 10 year old I remember walking around the pathways that had been cleared through rubble and seeing the charred cross set up with the words “Father Forgive “ carved in the stonework behind the altar. I was extremely moved and wept quietly; I still am, even today, when I return to the Cathedral, as I do occasionally. A visit is a must, almost a pilgrimage, whenever I return to the City and I think it always will be. In many ways that experience was the beginning of my quest to make contact with God, even though I didn’t realise it at the time.

SOME MEMORIES OF WORLD WAR 2:
When war was declared I was eight. I happened to be on holiday at my grandparents home in Newark, Nottinghamshire. The first night air raid wardens were running around blowing whistles which we understood was the signal that a gas attack was in progress. Dutifully we all put on our gas masks and sat in the dark. I don’t know how long we were sitting but eventually we were told we could take off our gas masks which we did and we children were packed off to a rather late bed.
As my home was Coventry with all its motor and armament industry my parents and grandparents decided the I should remain in Newark for a while. As nothing appeared to be happening I returned home after the Christmas holidays. To find that most of the children were evacuated and for the few who were left education was supplied on only two afternoons a week in a church hall. During the following months more children returned home and in the September we resumed lessons in school again. The war was beginning to hot up and I remember spending several days in the air raid shelters which had been built in the school grounds. We were directed into the shelters whenever the air raid sirens went and were allowed out again as the all clear sounded. I remember coming out of the shelter on one occasion to see a German aircraft going in a shallow dive with smoke coming from it pursued by a British fighter firing it guns in a continuous burst of fire. We school children cheered. The next day the German aircraft, a Messerschmitt Bf 110, was on display in a local park.
Then the night time raids began. It seemed as though at precisely 7.00pm each night the sirens would go and we retired to a shelter my father had built in the corner of the kitchen. He was never there as he drove a lorry for the Humber Car Company travelling every day between Coventry and London picking up parts for use at the Humber factory. We got quite used to going to bed in the shelter and sleeping there all night. It was cramped for three of us, my mother, my older sister and myself, but we made the best of the situation. Our home was in a dangerous location being within a short distance of a Rover factory, a Morris factory and an ordnance depot (which we understood had been built during the first world war by German prisoners of war). One night as we sat in our shelter there were three loud bangs and a heavy thud. Mum had taken the precaution of obtaining some medicine called Sal Volatile (something I don’t think is known these days). We were all visibly trembling so she gave each of us a dose to calm our nerves. The next day we discovered that four bombs had dropped on the ordnance factory. Three of the bombs had exploded doing quite a lot of damage inside and the fourth had dropped in a school yard next to the ordnance factory tunnelling under the school but not exploding. It took several days before it could be reached and defused.
On another occasion Dad had problems escaping from a barrage balloon which was damaged by high winds and seemed to chase him all the way home. It eventually became entangled in something about a hundred yards from our house. It took about two days to draw in the cable back to the winch and a lot of damage was done in getting it back.
Mum and Dad decided that we children should be moved away from Coventry again and Mum brought us to Repton, Derbyshire, where her brother lived with his wife and five children. We moved two weeks before the big raid on Coventry in November 1940 and on the night of the big raid we stood in the garden of our relative’s house watching the glow in the sky. Form forty miles away we weren’t able to decide whether it was Coventry or Birmingham under attack. The next evening we found out just how badly Coventry had been hit when Dad arrived for his weekend visit. He had managed to arrange to come to Derby to suppliers of parts to the Humber Company to let Mum know the situation at home. We hadn’t been affected by incendiary bombs that had destroyed the City centre but several bombs had been dropped around our home. One had fallen in the road immediately in front of the house, two had fallen into the canal which ran a short distance away, a house just along the street had been destroyed and a bungalow on the other side of the railway line which ran behind our house had also been demolished. It had taken Dad most of the day to get into Coventry to the Humber factory and it was quite late when he managed to reach us in Repton.
A few days before the big raid Dad had taken books from the Library and when he tried to returns them he found the Library had disappeared along with most of the buildings near it. He kept the books until after the war and then returned them with a letter of explanation. He received a rather surprised letter of thanks from the Library service. His reading tastes were rather unusual (he preferred books which had a lot of technical information in them and were probably some of the more expensive books in the Library.
My other outstanding memory of wartime from Coventry was being taken back there the early following year. Mum took me into a community canteen which had been set up in the centre of Coventry for lunch. Afterwards she took me into the Cathedral to look at the remains. As a now 10 year old I remember walking around the pathways that had been cleared through rubble and seeing the charred cross set up with the words “Father Forgive “ carved in the stonework behind the altar. I was extremely moved and wept quietly; I still am, even today, when I return to the Cathedral, as I do occasionally. A visit is a must, almost a pilgrimage, whenever I return to the City and I think it always will be. In many ways that experience was the beginning of my quest to make contact with God, even though I didn’t realise it at the time.

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