大象传媒

As told by Mary Thompson

My brother Jim was a commando in the Navy. My brother was shipwrecked three times: he was at Dunkirk, in the Russian convoys and at D-Day.
I didn't move out of London at all during the war. I was in the A.R.P. When the bombing started, I was at the pictures, and Queen Mary's Hospital just opposite was hit. Another time we were in the Theatre Royal watching the Scarlet Pimpernel, and he rescues an aristocrat with a horse and cart. A bomb dropped, and the horse nearly jumped off the stage. We all ran out and somebody shouted," Get Back!"
We just stood there which was just as well because somebody had roped it off on account of a landmine. There was a piano shop, and people were pushing pianos along the street to get them out of danger. Landmines were dropped by parachute, and blew up on impact. Bombs just dropped and blew up.
My cousin Win lived with us and she got married to a man in the Navy - he went back very soon after the wedding. We went to a Navy film, and she was called to the front; her husband came in on leave, but he hadn't been able to give her any warning. He only had seven days, then he was back again.
Rationing meant there was very little food. All you could get at the butcher's was two slices. A bomb dropped and sent all the soot down the chimney, right onto my two little slices of liver.
My daughter asked me what I did on my 21st. What I did was look at the sky and see a lot of planes flying in swastika formation. Down here we were helpless: we knew it and they knew we knew it.

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