大象传媒

On a Thursday night my father took me to the cinema on the Moor, The Wizard of Oz was showing. Just as Judy Garland was singing 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' the manager came onto the stage and said that there was an air raid. Because previously to this a lot of air raids had been false alarms everybody ignored the warning.

A short while later the manager came back onto the stage and said we all had to leave as the cinema was on fire, so we then all left and went to a waste ground next door.

We had our car parked there and my father opened the passenger door for me and put in my seat, he then went round the car to the drivers side and opened his door.
At that moment a red hot peice of shrapnel fell onto the roof, burnt through, fell onto the empty drivers seat and out the bottom of the car. My father missed being hit by seconds.

The ARP wardens then called for us to go into a nearby shelter. We headed off to the shelter and just as we got to the steps to go down, another bomb went off behind us and blew me off my feet. All I can remember is someone shouting "Catch that little girl". I went down the steps without touchiong one of them, luckily some one did catch me!

During the raid people from nearby houses kept going out and fetching drinks from their homes, many kept coming back down shaking their heads saying their house had gone.

Sometime during the night we were asked asked to move up because another shelter had had a direct hit and the survivers needed somewhere to go. After we had all squashed further into our shelter and made room for the new people, we got a direct hit, burying the people who had just been put inside the door from the previous one. The rest of the night was dreadfull because we had to sit and listen to the moans from the injured people. We could't get out either as the entrance was blocked by rubble.

Later the following day we where rescued and to get out we all had to climb over the rubble in witch were the dead bodies. Living in Norton, 3 or 4 miles from the City Center, it took us a long time to get home and we where also worried about my mother who was in the Jesop hospital at the time which we had heard had also been bombed.
Luckily she survived!

I still can remember how I felt and the smell of the dust and rubble, nightmares every now and then trouble my sleep. As for the film The Wizaed of Oz, I can never watch it without goose bumps going down my spine.

Doreen Cook.

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