大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from Age Concern, Dorchester on behalf of Pamela Stagg, and has been added to the site with her permission. Pamela fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Sitting with my two younger sisters on our local beach, Maidencombe, Torbay, we were suddenly aware of a line of aircraft moving from right to left at wave height on the horizon. As the first one reached the far left of the bay they all turned left as one, and came towards us, soaring up over the cliffs, we heard the bombs and machine gun fire on St Mary鈥檚 church and Torquay. The church was hit, killing over 50 children who had gathered there for a special occasion. Our small engineering factory was also demolished, but we salvaged what we could and moved to a small primary school to continue our war work for the duration. The effect of losing all those young lives was devastating; it was a terrible thing to have to go through.

As young girls we had a wonderful time courting the young men. In the West Country we were spoilt for choice as all the forces trained and were based here - Army, RAF and the Navy, not forgetting the American forces. My younger sister had a brief romance with a young American Bandsman. We used to say we never had it so good and there were lots of different romances.

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