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I was 15 when the war was declared in 1939 and until it was actually declared at 11am on Sunday September 3rd, I just wouldn’t believe that it really would happen. No way could I accept that leaders of our country would bring this upon us. Mind you, perhaps if I had been a little older and wiser, I could have realized as we were all told later that the time in 1938 when Chamberlain said ‘Peace in our time’ and 1939 when war was declared those in high places were well aware that we needed at least that year to make some kind of preparation for what had to come.

I left school in Aug.1940 and although I was evacuated to Leamington Spa on Sept 4th 1939 and had another year to do to take my School certificate, apart from having to take gas masks everywhere, put up with no street lighting, cinemas closing early …that year didn’t affect my life too much. My mother found she didn’t like me living away from home so I returned to Coventry and had my last year at the secondary school there and did my School Certificate and left school in July 1940.

I wanted to be a journalist, at 16. I don’t think I had much idea what that might involve, but I went to the Midland Daily Telegraph in Coventry now called the Coventry Evening Telegraph (accompanied by my mother) and applied for work. I didn’t get taken on and was disappointed but I had to work and so went to the GPO as a telephone operator. We had to train for 6 weeks at 15shillings per week and after training that went up to 30shillings per week what riches.!!!.

Although I was only 16 it made no difference to the shifts I had to work. The norm was 9 till 6 with an hour for lunch. There were other shifts; 8 till 5 and what was called split shift. An 8 hour day no matter how you did it. There were night shifts that had normally been done by men, but of course there weren’t so many of them around, so we youngsters took over. The split shift seemed to come round all too frequently and it was just when Coventry seemed to be a particular target area of the Luftwaffe, after all Coventry was a very busy industrial city Munitions, airplanes, tanks and many other essentials to run a war were being made there, plus a lot of research centres, so not surprising it would be a wonderful thing if the factories could be wiped out as far as Germany was concerned.

We would therefore come out of work at 8pm, they were very dark nights and I lived two miles out of town. I had a friend with whom I’d been evacuated, gone to school with and we both worked at the GPO and tried to do the same shifts so that we could ride home together. Within five minutes of leaving work the sirens would begin to wail…an air raid! Often you could hear the drone of planes and searchlights would be apparent from the ground. We had practically no lights on our bikes but we would pedal like mad to try and get home before some warden made us abandon our bikes and go down a shelter. We rarely got away with it and on these shifts we had not had our tea, but in those days one did not dare argue with authority and so we went down into the dimness and dankness of a shelter, where there would be many people and frightened babies, not a very welcoming place. Frequently it was after 12 before the all clear sounded and we were allowed out. We got bolder as the days passed and when we dare we would ignore the wardens but even so we would be late getting home and my parents were very worried.

I tried to join the Civil defence but they said I was too young, I did join, however, when I was 17 and that meant being on duty every fifth night and I was a records clerk and we stayed from 6pm till 6am, had to be fitted in with work, but when you are young you are much more adaptable than as we get older .My father wasn’t at all happy about any of this, but there was a war on and I wanted to do my bit.

However back to 1940 and Nov 11th ,a perfect evening, full moon, brilliantly lit and I had worked 9 till 6pm so was home when the sirens went about 7.30pm. In the road where we lived they had erected what was called a surface shelter, looking back I really can’t imagine they were strong enough to protect us very well and as far as I was concerned. I wanted to be out and about and helping outside a shelter if possible. The shelter held about twenty people and one lady had recently had a baby girl 2weeks old and she also had two young sons, approx 4yrs and 2yrs. I was outside hearing this constant loud drone of planes and then the terrible bangs as bombs were dropped the whole street shook from some of them, then many flares which would light the sky up even brighter and wherever they landed could cause a fire. The searchlights were constantly crisscrossing the sky and ack ack fire was as deafening as the bombs falling. A canal runs through Coventry and in the brilliance of the moon gave the Germans a wonderful target for the accuracy of their bombs. It was suspected that it was known that shadow factories on war work were alongside this canal, but it also seemed that they just didn’t care where they dropped the things, just to scare a town to death and even to destroy a most beautiful mediaeval cathedral. So it went on, but they made me go into the shelter to hold one of the children and I had to stay in till the all clear, about 6am the next morning. The air was acrid with the smell of burning, we had no electricity or gas but I think we had water. I was never allowed to lose time from work so had to set off the next morning into the city. One could not imagine how somewhere that you came home from only 14 hours before, could be so devastated. Huge craters every few yards. The tram lines stood up in the air as high as a house, places that had been buildings, just a shell and only two of us turned up for work that day but miraculously the Telephone exchange was still working. The lines were just jammed; anyone who had anyone in Coventry wanted to know how things were. In 1940 not so many people had their own phone and I can remember that people were begging me for news, but I only knew from Foleshill to Coventry and that the city centre was gone. We had some fine new shops when Coventry had gone through a redevelopment period , but the city centre just wasn’t there. By two o’clock in the afternoon I decided to try and get home. It wasn’t easy lifting my bicycle over the rubble, we had heard that Churchill and the King and Queen were visiting. I saw nothing of them, but they did come. I was quite scared in case I got caught in another raid of that magnitude. It surprises me that I felt no fear of being bombed, but of course I cannot remember having much breakfast that day and there wasn’t anywhere to get anything to eat in town. There were several cafes where we would normally go and get a bite at lunch time, although I normally went home as I couldn’t really afford to eat out. To lift my bike over the rubble wasn’t easy but up to now all the roads known to me were open. Afterwards it was all closed as there were craters with unexploded bombs in them and so detours had to be made.

About a week after, it may have been longer…I was coming home from work. I can’t remember the time, but certainly very dark and pouring with rain. I got up Bishops Street but couldn’t go along the road I knew and had to make several detours. I really wasn’t sure where I was. It was so eerie. I could make out a row of houses with no roofs, but the rafters were there all exposed like a haunted house might be but no houses occupied at all and suddenly I had gone down into a deep crater, bike and all. At this time I was still only 16 and a rather naïve 16 and I just stood there crying out for help, of course none came and somehow I had to scramble out of this deep hole with my bike, covered in mud and feeling VERY sorry for myself. Craters were huge and on one occasion I saw a complete double decker tram totally lost in one. Eventually I found my way back to the main Foleshill Road and trudged home. As I neared where I lived I could hear two men one on either side of the road calling Eileen. It was my sister’s boyfriend (he had been bombed out and was living with us) one side of the road and my father on the other. As there had been no air raid warning that night they could not understand why I was so late.

In April 1941 we had another dreadful raid on Coventry and I believe there were more casualties that night than on Nov 14th. It was terribly fierce but not so prolonged. I refused that night to go in a shelter and stayed in the house. We were lucky we only had a fire flare in the garden and windows shattered in the back kitchen. After that Coventry’s raids were few and far between. It was a terrible time and when one sees the roads devastated in any country that is experiencing war or fighting, one shudders, and we have to ask ourselves do our rulers and ministers really know what is best for us. There has to be a major change in the way people think, what good is power to them if the power they had has been ill used.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Anastasia Travers a volunteer with WM CSV Actiondesk on behalf of Eileen Gawthorpe and has been added to the site with his permission. Eileen Gawthorp fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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