大象传媒

This is the story of my parents - Sissie Marian Price and Ronald William Lewis Price. They were married on 31 January 1938 and went to live in Hatch End, Middlesex. My mother was then 25 and my father was 30. My father was a banker with Lloyds Bank and his work on the Inspection Staff took him all over the country.

In 1940 he was sent with a team of inspectors to Coventry. The Channel Islands had been occupied and their job was to deal with the securities, which had been brought over from the Channel Islands to the Coventry branch of Lloyds Bank. After some months the other inspectors departed and my father was left in charge.

My parents stayed with Mr and Mrs Hardcastle in Allesley on the outskirts of Coventry. Mr Hardcastle worked in Lloyds Bank and was happy to have my parents as otherwise he would have had to take in evacuees.

While there my mother was asked if she would like to go to the home of the local lady of the Manor (I do not know her name) where local women went to help with the war effort by making clothes for the soldiers. My mother was made quite a fuss of, as she was much younger than the other women and she was in demand as she could use the treadle machine.

Over the months my parents became used to spending nights in the air raid shelter. Every night German planes would fly over and drop bombs as the factories in Coventry were making munitions for the war. Every day names would be put up in the city of people who had been killed the night before.

On the night of 13 November 1940 the German planes circled the city all night, but did not drop any bombs. The following night the people of Coventry would realise why. It was a reconnaissance mission for the night of the 14th. On the evening of the 14th my parents and Mr Hardcastle, plus the dog Zip (he was always the first to go into the shelter) went into the shelter when the air raid sirens sounded. Mrs Hardcastle was away visiting relatives. This night there would be wave after wave of German planes going over with the noise of bombing and British anti-aircraft guns. At one point my father went to the door of the shelter and said that he could see a German airman bailing out. Mr Hardcastle called him back in. It was no airman but a mine. It landed in an adjacent field, making a huge crater.

The following morning the devastation of the air raid could be seen. The Hardcastles' house had not received a direct hit, but the force of the surrounding explosions had blown out all the windows, causing considerable damage. My mother set about restoring order to the house and Mr Hardcastle managed to get a builder to do essential repairs to the house while my father attempted to get into the office. Some days later the council sent one man to fill in the crater in the adjoining field - surely a daunting task for him. Mrs Hardcastle could not get back for several days. Her reaction when she returned was horror at the damage. She should have seen it before my mother and Mr Hardcastle got to work.

My father had to walk into Coventry that day, as there was no public transport running. All along the way there was devastation and in the city the Cathedral had been destroyed. The list of people killed was long. The bank, however, was still standing. He would recall his impressions to my mother and Mr Hardcastle that evening.

With telephone lines down, my mother's mother in South Wales had no news of her. She heard first that a city in the Midlands had had a terrible air raid and then that it was Coventry. These must have been dreadful days for her. After several days my father managed to get enough petrol for his car for them to get as far as friends in Buckingham, and from there they were able to phone my grandmother.

To this day I have a little brass paperweight: a shoe with a mouse at the top. My mother bought it in a shop in Coventry when she was able to go in. The shop had suffered water damage and was selling things cheaply. My mother always treasured it and now I do.

Eventually my parents returned to London just as London was starting to be bombed, but this did not seem to be as vivid in my mother's memory as Coventry. All the time my father was being deferred from being called up as he was in a reserved occupation. My mother was however called for war work. She asked if it mattered that she was expecting a baby and that was the end of that! I think she was quite disappointed. My father was in the end called up in December 1942, on the day I was born. Not very good timing!

My mother went home to Wales and I spent the first five years of my life there. My father became an officer in the Army Pay Corps. As he was late going into the army he was late coming out. After the war he returned to his career with Lloyds Bank ending up as manager of Water Street, the main branch of Lloyds Bank in Liverpool. In the intervening years my parents returned once to Coventry, seeing the new Cathedral. They retired back to Yeovil in Somerset where my father had been the manager of the local branch before going to Liverpool. He died in January 1993 and my mother died in January 2002. To the end she would reminisce about the days in Coventry and say that she should have written about it. When I saw on television the request to write in about wartime experiences, I felt I had to do so as a tribute to my mother.

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