大象传媒

This story was submitted to the the People's War site by Stoke-on-Trent Libraries on behalf of Paul Bemrose and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I remember the Germans raided Crewe Railhead and we were on the flight path I remember seeing search lights on a regular basis.
At this time my brother had scarlet fever my mother burnt sulphur candles in his bedroom for four hours after which he got the all clear.
We heard the sirens and all got under the table, the house was on fire, I was ten years old.
We saw the Spitfires attatcking the Germans and hour an hour later came the incendiary bombs.
My father was an assistant-controller fire warden. He wore a red tin hat. The next morning we discovered that other houses were worse off than ours.
I collected 8 incendiary bombs and sold them for 2/6 each.
The North Staffs hospital was near-by - old soldiers from World War one lived at the workhouse and wore union blue uniforms.
We bought sandbags 1 penny for 10, filled them and put them up to the first floor windows of the hospital. We had cups of tea while we were working and talked to the old soldiers.
A teacher at high school who was an air-raid warden caught me with 1/2 an incendiary bomb in my pocket.
There were horrific drowning accidents with the static water tanks which were for public use.
These tanks stood 36 feet high and were 20 foot in diametre. I also remember the gas detectors which would change colour from a sickly green colour to a brown colour when gas was detected.

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