大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War website by Judie Krebs for GMR Action Desk on behalf of Renee Sockett, with her permission. The author is fully aware of the Terms and Conditions.

A barrage balloon escaped and came towards our house. My brother John, who was about 27 and was visiting us at the time, ran upstairs, opened the bedroom window and put both his hands out to push it away from the house. I think someone shot it down eventually, which was even more dangerous than what he'd tried to do.

I would have been about 10 years old when, running across the yard to our shelter during a raid, I saw a German plane "straffing" the pavement - firing at the people in the street from just above the rooftops. I was so frightened. It was the scariest thing I ever remember although I was terrified when I heard the first-ever air raid siren.

We weren't hit again in Hartlepool, but my sister Sheila, four years older than me, was a student in Bedford College, London, when the buzz bombs were going off. The family knew about the dangers of war from the First World War because a great aunt had been killed when German ships came into the harbour at Hartlepool and bombarded the whole area where she had lived.

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