大象传媒

Dark streets,car headlights with metal top hats to restrict the light and bumpers
painted white.The buses had small two wheel trailers with an oil drum type device
which produced gas, everyone carried some sort of flashlight, which had to be pointed
downwards. Blackout was paramount, no light was allowed to show. My uncle had a
switch attached to the front door which plunged the living room into darkness when
the outside door was opened.

Each night just around teatime the siren would go. The bread half buttered, the family
would dash round the corner and up the hill to grandfather鈥檚 air-raid shelter, I in my
siren suit with my Woolworth鈥檚 tin hat with a W painted on by my father.Even today I
can still remember the smell of concrete and brick as I lay in the bunk against the wall.
My mother and aunts in their stylish coats which seemed incongruous in this situation,
never having been designed for sleeping. On awakening I would find myself in bed at
home the last part of the previous night a total blank.

To get away from the bombing mum and I would stay with relations on the
Lincolnshire coast. Most of the houses adjacent to the flat promenade were occupied
by the soldiers . Coils of barbed wire prevented acccess to the beach except for the
occational pair of soldiers equiped with walkie -talkie radios. On one walk during
daylight hours the siren went and the troops, billeted in the vacated boarding houses,
came clambering out of doors and windows, their studded boots sliding and scraping
on the the smooth tarmac. The enemy planes would fly in below the horizon to avoid
detection.
The dance hall at the far end of the promenade had been comandeered for a mess hall.
Outside the hall the soldiers would be lined up ,knife ,fork ,spoon and mug held behind
in left hand out of harms way. The pier had been cut in half and strung across the gap
was a bo鈥檚uns chair. On some days a figure could be seen swaying and slowly moving
toward the empty cafe building on the end.

Dark streets,car headlights with metal top hats to restrict the light and bumpers
painted white.The buses had small two wheel trailers with an oil drum type device
which produced gas, everyone carried some sort of flashlight, which had to be pointed
downwards. Blackout was paramount, no light was allowed to show. My uncle had a
switch attached to the front door which plunged the living room into darkness when
the outside door was opened.

Each night just around teatime the siren would go. The bread half buttered, the family
would dash round the corner and up the hill to grandfather鈥檚 air-raid shelter, I in my
siren suit with my Woolworth鈥檚 tin hat with a W painted on by my father.Even today I
can still remember the smell of concrete and brick as I lay in the bunk against the wall.
My mother and aunts in their stylish coats which seemed incongruous in this situation,
never having been designed for sleeping. On awakening I would find myself in bed at
home the last part of the previous night a total blank.

To get away from the bombing mum and I would stay with relations on the
Lincolnshire coast. Most of the houses adjacent to the flat promenade were occupied
by the soldiers . Coils of barbed wire prevented acccess to the beach except for the
occational pair of soldiers equiped with walkie -talkie radios. On one walk during
daylight hours the siren went and the troops, billeted in the vacated boarding houses,
came clambering out of doors and windows, their studded boots sliding and scraping
on the the smooth tarmac. The enemy planes would fly in below the horizon to avoid
detection.
The dance hall at the far end of the promenade had been comandeered for a mess hall.
Outside the hall the soldiers would be lined up ,knife ,fork ,spoon and mug held behind
in left hand out of harms way. The pier had been cut in half and strung across the gap
was a bo鈥檚uns chair. On some days a figure could be seen swaying and slowly moving
toward the empty cafe building on the end.

Dark streets,car headlights with metal top hats to restrict the light and bumpers
painted white.The buses had small two wheel trailers with an oil drum type device
which produced gas, everyone carried some sort of flashlight, which had to be pointed
downwards. Blackout was paramount, no light was allowed to show. My uncle had a
switch attached to the front door which plunged the living room into darkness when
the outside door was opened.

Each night just around teatime the siren would go. The bread half buttered, the family
would dash round the corner and up the hill to grandfather鈥檚 air-raid shelter, I in my
siren suit with my Woolworth鈥檚 tin hat with a W painted on by my father.Even today I
can still remember the smell of concrete and brick as I lay in the bunk against the wall.
My mother and aunts in their stylish coats which seemed incongruous in this situation,
never having been designed for sleeping. On awakening I would find myself in bed at
home the last part of the previous night a total blank.

To get away from the bombing mum and I would stay with relations on the
Lincolnshire coast. Most of the houses adjacent to the flat promenade were occupied
by the soldiers . Coils of barbed wire prevented acccess to the beach except for the
occational pair of soldiers equiped with walkie -talkie radios. On one walk during
daylight hours the siren went and the troops, billeted in the vacated boarding houses,
came clambering out of doors and windows, their studded boots sliding and scraping
on the the smooth tarmac. The enemy planes would fly in below the horizon to avoid
detection.
The dance hall at the far end of the promenade had been comandeered for a mess hall.
Outside the hall the soldiers would be lined up ,knife ,fork ,spoon and mug held behind
in left hand out of harms way. The pier had been cut in half and strung across the gap
was a bo鈥檚uns chair. On some days a figure could be seen swaying and slowly moving
toward the empty cafe building on the end.

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