大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by ^{About links} on behalf of Bernard Hubbard and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

The date that sticks in my mind is 28th April 1942 and the time 10.30 a.m. At that moment I was in the Anderson shelter in my garden on St. Martins Road, Norwich (near to Wensum Park). With me in the shelter was my mother, stepsister and my father (Thomas). My father had not been called up to fight because he was aged 52 and too old. He had lost a lung in the first World War.

My job, when the siren went, was to take water in a very strong jar into the shelter. We also had food there.

That particular day, while we were in the shelter, we suddenly heard 鈥榩lanes and then bombs dropping like rain. My house collapsed on to the shelter and my father鈥檚 head was very, very badly damaged. There was so much blood and he died in the shelter. For two and a half days my stepsister, my mother and me sat in the shelter. We were up to our necks in water because a water main had been hit and as a result everything had become flooded. I was only ten years old at the time and I felt I was going to drown. The air-raid wardens finally dug us out. We then discovered that not only had my Dad died in the raid, but many children in the street had as well. Many of these children had been my friends.
My mother, stepsister and I were then sent to Yoxford in Suffolk. We lived for the rest of the war in a very small house (one up, one down).
In 1945 we returned to Norwich to live on the Plumstead Estate. I was very pleased to be back in Norwich.

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