大象传媒

ALEXANDER'S STORY

I was 15 years old when I got the unfortunate news that a war was going to take place. It was terrible but we had to accept it, what could you do? My brother Tommy went to the royal navy, I got a call from him around 3 months after he joined saying he was enjoying it. My other brother died in a bomb accident. The air raids were dreadful but fun in a way me and my friends used to run around the streets dodging the bombs and the shrapnel and playing.

I had an Anderson shelter and a Morrison shelter because my father was rich and he bought them. He owned a sales company called Riley鈥檚 in Bridlington.

I was scared of the German aircrafts they caused total mayhem and caused lots of trouble. I remember once a German aircraft swooped in a bombed my house while I was in the Anderson shelter, it was very scary. I didn鈥檛 trust the Anderson shelters they weren鈥檛 very reliable but it was all we had and when they Germans bombed your house you couldn鈥檛 dodge them. So I didn鈥檛 spend much of my time in the Anderson. It was very hard to build as well it took my brothers hours. Everyone had to pull together in the war and work as a team.

The rationing was quite hard to cope with. I often stole from the local shop because my mother didn鈥檛 have enough food to feed us luckily I never got caught so my diet did change quite a lot in the war I wasn鈥檛 evacuated because my mother didn鈥檛 want me to go and I didn鈥檛 want to go. I thought I would be missing out on all the action in the war.

I was very glad when the war was over but I couldn鈥檛 help feel sorry for all the lives lost and I paid my respects to them after the parties had ended.

So the war was a very frightening and unforgettable experience but it will always be in my mind.

Written by Alex Thompson of Forest Hall and Stephen Wilson of Shiremoor, both y9 students at George Stephenson High School, Killingworth, Newcastle upon Tyne.

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