大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Dianne Burtrand of Chelmsford Library on behalf of Margery Jellicoe and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I lived in Barking during the war. At the end of our road was Barking Town Football Club ground.
When war broke out underground air raid shelters were built around the perimeter of the field. They were in the form of corridors about six feet wide. Most of the people who lived at that end of the road used to use this public shelter and as the raids became more frequent and prolonged, we took to sleeping there all night.
One night during a very heavy raid there was a terrific thump and all the lights went out. My brother was sleeping on the top bunk and there was a sheet of brown paper fixed to the ceiling above his head which was detached by the vibration and floated down on his head. He afterwards said that waking up in the pitch dark with the paper over his head he thought he was dead and he said to himself 鈥淚f this is what it鈥檚 like to be dead I can live with that!鈥�
We discovered later that a bomb had fallen right in the middle of the field leaving an enormous crater. The shelters were undamaged.

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