大象传媒

Dad was in engineering and during the war was classified as an essential worker. He was sent, with wife and three children from Colchester, where he had served 12 years in the Royal Artillery, to the Austin Aero factory at Longbridge, Birmingham,to work on aeroplanes. This factory was later Rovers, now closed. The Luftwaffe tried time and again to hit these works. Our house was only a short distance away and many a night we were carried half asleep down into the air raid shelter in the garden by my Dad amidst the thud of bombs and the crackle of anti-aircraft guns, with the powerful searchlights illuminating the night sky.

Then daytime bombing and strafing began and I shall never forget walking home past the works one afternoon from school, probably in 1941 or 42, when I was 6 or 7 and the warning siren sounded. Straight away it seemed the sky was filled with planes and resounding bangs and I remember seeing men stream out from the buildings across the open area to the shelters and the small fighter planes marked with crosses on their wings zooming down on them with guns firing. They came down so low I could see their pilots. I remember becoming hysterical and screaming that my dad was in there before a brave shopkeeper grabbed me up and took me to the back of his shop to their shelter. Fortunately my dad was lucky and in 1943 was sent to the AVRoe factory in Yeadon, Yorkshire. These works were better protected as the clever designers covered them with a green hill with hedges and even cows grazing so it couldn't be seen from the air. I am told that its now part of Yeadon Airport.

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