大象传媒

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by the Barnsley Archives and Local Studies Department on behalf of Margaret Mary Waldron and has been added to the site with his/her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."
My mother had a baby and my aunt came from Sheffield to take me and my sister to Nether Edge to look after us.

The Sheffield raids started and we went down into the cellars. Two cellars had been knocked through to make one so two families shared the one cellar. We had a tilley lamp and wooded bunk beds had been roughly made for us to sit on. We had water down there and food from the cellar head. There was a chemical toilet.

We thought the raid would only last one night but it went on.

The bombardment went on and the second day we heard shouting. We were told to get out as there was an incendiary bomb in the front garden. We came up through the house just in the clothes we were in and set off walking to Midland Station.

It was terrible, the noise and the smell. There were hundreds of people all walking. You couldn鈥檛 walk in a straight line because there were potholes and rubble everywhere. We were looking at the fires and the smoking buildings as we walked. We didn鈥檛 cry, we just got on with it. We finally got a bus to Rotherham, then a trackless to Mexborough. We walked from Mexborough to Highgate with my aunt and uncle. We had our gas masks with us but no other protection. My parents were frantic until we turned up. Then relief set in and we got on with life.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.